Welcome to another installment of Swamponomics: Liberty Nation’s dive into the week’s morass of top news stories and the stream of economic fallacies that have been accepted as conventional wisdom by swamp creatures for years.
Bernie’s Benjamins
Facing pressure from the unfriendly mainstream media – the journalists attempting to exact revenge because his campaign exposed the Hillary Clinton squad – Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) revealed that he is releasing 10 years of tax returns. In an attempt to show that his fortune is a little bit more subdued than President Donald Trump’s, Sen. Sanders told The New York Times: “I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
Bernie Sanders
The news industry is having a field day with this statement, complaining that this comment makes Sanders seem out of touch with the rest of the country. While it is true that Sanders is another champagne socialist – or, at the very least, has transformed into one (three properties!) – the real story behind this is the hypocrisy of the permanent politician’s millionaire status and his newfound love for the market.
Sanders has spent much of his career shouting leftist slogans about how capitalism is unjust and iniquitous. He rose to political stardom by repeating fibs about income inequality and taxation and telling the public about how they can have all this free stuff if they just demanded it and considered it a human right. He penned a book vilifying the very system that made him wealthy.
Ultimately, Sanders concedes that if you work hard – writing a best-selling book is no small feat – and use the tools of the free-enterprise system, then you, too, can become successful. It might seem like common sense, but it is a revelation for socialists. This is the antithesis of everything he has espoused over the last five decades, tweeting asinine tropes daily about the top 1% – he has tweaked it to the top 0.01% because he is a now member of the vilified club.
Sanders’s age has come into question – it’s been rumored that he dated Ruth Bader Ginsburg during the time of Lincoln. But, with his sudden embrace of the free market system, it is now apparent that his age is not impacting his capacities.
Ray Dalio
Ray Dalio Hates Capitalism
Ray Dalio is the 79th richest person in the world. Thanks to one of the world’s largest hedge funds, Dalio has $18 billion in the bank. At 69 years of age and with billions at his disposal, you would think he’d spend his free time catching up on Agatha Christie novels. Instead, it seems like he is watching YouTube clips of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) – he sounds just like her when he goes on television.
Dalio is all over the boob tube these days, decrying the sins of capitalism and arguing that this economic system, which has brought more people out of poverty than any other philosophy in history, is denying “the American dream.” Therefore, according to the hedge fund titan, now is the time to reform capitalism. He told 60 Minutes:
"The American dream is lost. If I was the president of the United States, what I would do is recognize that this is a national emergency right now – it's a huge issue it's unfair and, at the same time, it's unproductive, and at the same time it's – threatens to split us."
The founder of Bridgewater Associates then conceded days later on CNBC: “I’m capitalist, I’m a professional capitalist. The system has worked for me. I didn’t have anything and then I got something through the capitalist system.”
So, how does Dalio proposed to reform capitalism? One way is to raise taxes on the wealthy. This is a standard suggestion from billionaires: raise their taxes. First, they can voluntarily contribute to the government at any time, writing a check to the Treasury. Second, why would he think giving the government more money would accomplish anything? The state already squanders the trillions of dollars it receives, so feeding the Leviathan will only lead to greater waste.
Moreover, Dalio could have led by example at Bridgewater by introducing a panoply of progressive goodies:
Hired more impoverished workers from inadequate government schools.
Equalized pay between workers and executives.
Paid additional corporate and capital gains taxes.
Instituted a profit-sharing model.
Dalio could have implemented his own series of reforms, but he walked the typical socialist route: Can’t someone else do it? Perhaps Dalio is going through a life crisis and wants the billionaire-hating world to love him like they adore Warren Buffett.
Capitalism doesn’t need to be reformed. It needs, as Peter Schiff noted, to be “rediscovered and embraced.”
Do You Feel Lucky?
Ostensibly, according to the intolerant left, if you are white then you are prohibited from cooking or eating Chinese food, Indian cuisine, or Mexican culinary delights. It is unclear if it goes both ways. Can someone from Uganda cook clam chowder? Or, can a Japanese person bake apple pie?
Arielle Haspel, a nutritionist in New York City, found out the hard way that you can’t own a Chinese restaurant and have a certain politically incorrect skin color in today’s world. Haspel recently opened Lucky Lee’s, named after her husband, for “people who love to eat Chinese food and love the benefit that it will actually make them feel good.” The main gimmick is that her menu options will be free of MSG, additives, and ingredients that make patrons “feel bloated and icky.”
The social justice wing of the Twitterverse was not having any of it. Classical pianist Sharon Su issued a call to arms, urging her “white allies” to take down the “xenophobic American lady.” Haspel’s social media has been bombarded with nasty messages, including the 2019 go-to accusation of racism.
But is a white woman cooking Chinese food racist?
It is safe to say that most of the country loathes racism. At the same time, much of the nation likely doesn’t think a modicum of what the left describes as racist is racist. If they did, then these types of enterprises would crumble under the weight of the marketplace, not a Twitter mob. Haspel is attempting to satisfy a demand for Chinese food without high levels of sodium and sugar while remaining delicious. Should the market consider this something you’d find in the Third Reich, then Haspel can expect Lucky Lee’s to shut down in days. The market rejects real racism, the kind that bars certain races from patronizing the establishment.
Gordon Ramsay is set to open a new restaurant in London called the Lucky Cat, a “vibrant Asian eating house” inspired by 1930s Tokyo. Like many of Ramsay’s ventures, Lucky Cat will likely be a successful diner. If the sensitive SJWs whine about it, the legendary chef will surely utter his favorite f-word to melt these snowflakes, while they are still holding their iPhones with the Twitter app open to cry about racist white people.
Pearl-Clutching is Overdone
All these economic stories have the same thing in common: pearl-clutching. Senator Sanders has suggested the demise of capitalism is nigh and that we need socialism before the world blows up. Ray Dalio thinks capitalism needs to be reformed because the American Dream is being denied to millions. A handful of random people are getting angry because a white woman is cooking Chinese food. But these grievances are overdone and overblown; market capitalism is doing fine. Capitalism is making everyone better off and the marketplace is giving us more options, including MSG-free honey glazed spare ribs topped with scallions, prepared by a white lady.
