A Greedy Nation Of Looters

The Foundation for a Free Society covers Frederic Bastiat’s moral philosophy about government looting in a brief and humorous way.



Of course, there's nothing funny about coercion, theft, or threats of violence in order to take peoples' property from them.

Consider that if something is good and benefits people, people will voluntarily pay for whatever good or service is being offered. This is how free markets work.

Consider that if something is bad and harms people, people will not voluntarily pay for whatever good or service is being offered. This is how governments work.

People will not voluntarily pay for war unless they perceive an immediate danger to themselves. People will not voluntarily pay for bank bailouts. People will not voluntarily pay for politician's salaries. People will not voluntarily pay for corn subsidies. People will not voluntarily pay for the vast majority of things government engages in.

They don't voluntarily pay because the vast majority of things government engages in do not bring a positive benefit to society.

Take healthcare spending for example. People will voluntarily pay for healthcare. But they will not voluntarily pay for a total strangers healthcare. When a total stranger has the ability to take as much money as he needs from his neighbors to pay for his healthcare, he will not give a damn about how much the healthcare costs him at all.

And since he can take as much money as he needs, and the doctors are certainly willing to take as much money as he can offer, the only possible outcome of this situation is that healthcare costs will skyrocket.

Skyrocketing healthcare costs obviously do far more harm to the poor and middle class than cutting off the fuel supply for the inflationary firestorm.

Nothing good ever comes from the initiation of violence.

reply to post by mnemeth1


A nice summarization of things. Well done.

But now that we're there, how do we fix it? We all have our thoughts on this matter, but the realization is that it will be nasty hasn't dawned on many.

reply to post by TDawgRex


The market will fix itself.

The US will enter into a state of insolvency. Most likely this will cause the Feds to hyper-inflate the currency.

Once they have destroyed the dollar, the government will become defunct since it will not be able to pay its workers with anything that has monetary value.

That is great stuff. We are deffinately being milked for everything that we are worth.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that this will "fix" itself over time. "Fix" means "Repair", and I personally don't see things being "repaired" to their former glory. It is an engineered equalization of the american people. We will suffer a great many things over the next decade, and in the end, a helping hand will be extended by our worst enemy. They will have us begging to work for 2 bucks an hour. Not american dollars of course, but what ever currency is sure to come. They will put us on par with the rest of the world, and build us back up just enough to float their lavish lifestyles.

Just my opinion.

When it gets down to it �" talking trade balances here �" once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here �" once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel �" once the Invisible Hand has taken away all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity �" y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

This is your future.

reply to post by CaptChaos


i have to disagree with movies.

hollylame usually makes all the on location and that aint here in the us they also shoot in canada more than they do here in the us.

so hollywood has outsourced just like every other industry.


to the op:

the lack of competition is the root cause of skyrocketing healthcare costs from the greedy corrupt goverment knowing best and business not knowing jack.

look at any industry in this country:

cars: hand full of automakers.
airplane: a hand full of plane manufacturers
operation systems for computers: hand full around 3
big oil: a hand full of oil porducers.


thats the pattern no competition that lead to high prices compunded by the devaluation of the dollar and goverment violence in killing off competition.

indeed as long as someone else pays for crap the beneficiary will not care the only thing they will care about

is when the tap is turned off and they scream bloody murder.

the country has indeed become a greedy nation of looters from its government to its people

and it doesnt look like its going to change one iota in the foreseeable future.

its mine mine mine what yours is mine and screw what you think.

its sad man its totally sad.

reply to post by mnemeth1


Nice find. I agree. The video is also short enough and flashy enough, to hold the average person's interest until the point is made. S&F.