Required Rumbler Reading

Haven't done an R Cubed column in a bit, but over Thanksgiving I worked through my "Read it Later List" and thought I would share a few gems with you.

1. Should the Rich Be Condemned? I grow weary of Obama's constant class warfare and the idiocy it has spawned in the streets. But Walter Williams nails it in this piece. "Class warfare thrives on ignorance of the sources of income," Williams observes.  Sadly, ignorance begets tyranny.  I can't think of any demagogue from Huey Long to Adolf Hitler that hasn't used the meme that "someone else is getting theirs unfairly" that has improved the situation.  The usual outcome is pretty grim.

2. U.S. Job Market Looking More Like Europe's:  This Wall Street Journal piece takes a hard look at the results of Obanomics and what it has done to the core job numbers.  It is a sobering prediction that if we don't change the regulatory environment and get the American economy focused on growth instead of "fairness," we're all screwed.

3. Speaking of the rich...what if we took EVERYTHING they had?  Bill Whittle did a short video on this that is highly instructive - I shared this before, but it really is worth another look:

4. FATCA: A Ticking Time Bomb for the Economy:  Is that intro missing a "T" at the end?  I had not heard about this, but it actually stands for "Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act," bred from the FBAR. No, my military veteran friends not "F***** Up Beyond All Repair,"  FBAR is actually the "Foreign Bank Accounting Report.  FATCA gives IRS the authority to find out the bank balances of U.S. citizens living abroad and to require the institutions holding those funds to report the information. This is truly scary stuff and will result in a complete abandonment of US financial markets by foreign investors.

5. Thomas Jefferson's Free Market Economics: as a student of the history of Mr. Jefferson, I was well aware of his love for Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations."  This short piece pushed Jefferson squarely into the economic libertarian camp.  It might be a bit of an overstatement - just as when Jefferson said "the tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants."  He didn't really mean there needed to be regular violent revolution...it was a calculated overstatement to drive home the point that liberty requires vigilance.  This is a good piece, nevertheless, worth the read!

That's enough for now...

Rumble on!