An interactive map of world economic freedom at the Cato Institute (2007)
Cato also has the 2009 Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report which shows the US number 6 in the world, much lower than the number 2 spot it held in 2000.
Tag Archives: Empire
Time to Run
My latest piece, “Time to Run”, at Lew Rockwell:
“Is it time to run?
That’s what I’ve been asking myself for three years now.
Before that, I thought it was simply a matter of finding a better place to live. A place that was quieter and cheaper. Where flippers and developers hadn’t taken over the neighborhood. Somewhere safe I could park my car on the street and not worry about it.
But by the time I found it, I also found that the thieves were inside the house, not on the street. There’s really no hiding from them. And no hiding from what they can do.
Our mene, mene, tekel upharsin is on the wall.
It’s time to run, not hide.
I mean that. We’re in the throes of an economic collapse of a kind last seen in the 1930s. The government is intent on grabbing control of whatever it can. American firms are dropping like flies. Unemployment is soaring. Debt is soaring. The money supply is soaring. Our foreign policy is a wreck – we have more enemies than we can count. We have a drug war on the borders, we have gang war in the ghettos, we have culture wars in the academy and media.
We have criminals in government.
The future isn’t any brighter. Subprime is only the first leg down. We still have a second wave of housing trouble in store, centering around commercial real estate and option ARM loans.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research, wrote a piece last year predicting that by 2012 there would be food riots, tax rebellion, and revolution across the country. Celente has a good track record in the forecasting business.
Experts predict a 100% rise in prices across the board. In the best-case scenario, it will happen over ten years. In the worst case, it might happen within months….”
Read the rest at Lew Rockwell
Paul Craig Roberts on the End of Empire (comment added)
Washington Arrogance Has Fomented a Muslim Revolution
by Paul Craig Roberts
Hat-tip to David Redick for the link
“In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.”
~ Justice Louis Brandeis
Is Pakistan responsible for the Mumbai attack in India? No.
Is India’s repression of its Muslim minority responsible? No.
Is the United States government responsible? Yes.
The attack on Mumbai required radicalized Muslims. Radicalized Muslims resulted from; (Item numbers inserted by ARTS)
1. the US overthrowing the elected government in Iran and imposed the Shah;
2. from the US stationing troops in Saudi Arabia;
3. from the US invading and attempting to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq,
4. bombing weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games;
5. from the US violating international and US law by torturing its Muslim victims
6. from the US enlisting Pakistan in its war against the Taliban;
7. from the US violating Pakistan’s sovereignty by conducting military operations on Pakistani territory, killing Pakistani civilians;
8. from the US government supporting a half century of Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their lands, towns and villages;
9. from the assault of American culture on Muslim values;
10. from the US purchasing the government of Egypt to act as its puppet;
11. from US arrogance that America is the supreme arbiter of morality.
As Justice Brandeis said, crime is contagious. Government teaches by example, and America’s example is lawlessness. America’s brutal crimes against the Muslim world have invited every Muslim to become a law unto himself – a revolutionary. It is not terror that Washington confronts but revolution……
The change over which Obama will preside will have no American victories. The change will come from
1. America as a failed state,
2. from the dollar dethroned as reserve currency,
3. from America repudiated by its allies and paid puppets,
4. from massive unemployment for which there is no solution,
5. from hyperinflation that produces anarchy.
6. The day might arrive when Washington is faced with revolution at home as well as abroad.
December 5, 2008
My Comment
Roberts’s piece is provocatively stated, so I thought should add this comment. I think he’s fairly correct to state that the Pakistani and Indian governments are not to blame, fundamentally, for what’s happening. However, to the degree that these governments – like others – tend to take the line of least resistance and go along with Washington’s agenda, or buy into it, or stand on the sidelines while that agenda is enacted elsewhere, they encourage the misdeeds of the prime culprit. And, to the degree that they are themselves corrupt or lawless, they don’t help the situation…
(Not following either of the two countries’ internal politics, I can’t do more than make a general statement).
How not to go along, you might ask?
Well, there’s Angela Merkel’s recent condemnation of global central bank interventionism. Why can’t we hear more of that from the global community?
Or has the cat got its tongue on every issue but the issue of Israel-Palestine?