The
federal government, in guiding the economic destiny of the country,
must be staffed largely with those who are unaware of how little they
know, who have no qualms about their ability to plan and regulate the
national economic growth, set wages, prescribe hours of work, write the
price tags for everything, decide how much of what shall be produced,
expand or contract the money supply arbitrarily, set interest rates and
rents, subsidize with other peoples' earnings whatever activity strikes
their fancy, lend billions not voluntarily entrusted to them, allocate
the fruits of the labor of all to foreign governments of their choice -
in short, decide what shall be taken from each Peter and how much of the
'take' shall be paid to each Paul.
— Leonard E. Read, Anything That's Peaceful [1964]
(Hat tip fff.org)
The good news is New Zealand no longer regulates to this degree. But there's no shortage of people who think we should....a return to the "golden age".
Oh come on:
ReplyDeleteThe federal government, in guiding the economic destiny of the country, must be staffed largely with those who are unaware of how little they know,
clearly even more true today than ever!
who have no qualms about their ability to plan and regulate the national economic growth,
just look at parliament and the bureaucracy
set wages,
unions, govt ministries "negotiating" for something like 70% of the economy - including all education & healthcare
prescribe hours of work,
Department of Labour
expand or contract the money supply arbitrarily,
Reserve bank
set interest rates and rents,
Reserve bank
subsidize with other peoples' earnings whatever activity strikes their fancy
Government, Welfare, MBIE
, lend billions not voluntarily entrusted to them,
KiwiStealer, KiwiBank
allocate the fruits of the labor of all to foreign governments of their choice -
NZAid
in short, decide what shall be taken from each Peter and how much of the 'take' shall be paid to each Paul.
IRD.
Worse today than back then?
abso-fucking-lutely