Greetings from FreedomFest 2021 in Rapid City, South Dakota! This is the first of several articles in the selected conference in “The World’s Greatest Liberals Conference” (according to founder Mark Skousen). Here is an excerpt from their press release released today to give you an idea of all this:
The FreedomFest and Anthem Film Festival began today, attracting more than 2,500 freedom lovers, politicians, filmmakers, and leading experts to the downtown Rapid City, South Dakota. This is the record turnout rate for the “largest free thought gathering” and the first time the conference and film festival have been held outside of Las Vegas.
Attendees and speakers will explore Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Monument today before the official opening of Freedom Day, including Governor Christine Nome, “Reagan” actor Dennis Quaid, Liberal Vice Presidential candidate Spike Cohen and comedy Keynote speech by actor JP Sears.
The meeting is going on at the same time because there are 10 speakers in different meeting rooms. Therefore, I will choose those (for me) that are most interesting. The kick-off meeting comes from the meeting host, Dr.Mark Skusen. Here are some of his comments:
- This is a version of the lectures I often give to college students across the country.
- Students are attracted by “democratic socialism.” We have a lot of work to convince them otherwise.
- Capitalism is the sharing of wealth; socialism is the sharing of poverty.
- Democratic capitalism is superior to democratic socialism.
- “Everyone does their best and distributes according to their needs.”-Karl Marx (this is the basis for transforming socialists into capitalists based on pure economics)
- A big question is how long it takes for a person to live comfortably for a year (varies by location-choose a number).
- If a person’s income exceeds the minimum limit, the excess will be taxed 100% and given to those who did not earn that nominal number (a person has no incentive to earn more than that set number)
- Even the students found that this example is not the best, because no one will try to exceed this arbitrary number for a comfortable life stipulated by the state.
- “Each do his best, each do his best behavior. “-Jack London (1895). This is the definition of capitalism.
- Henry Ford destroyed Marxism in the United States in 1914: he shared the wealth of Ford Motor Company and did not exploit his workers (exploitation and hoarding of wealth are arguments Marxists use to oppose capitalism)
- The motivation for sharing wealth is to increase productivity (reduce absenteeism) and demand (increase purchasing power)
- Sharing wealth with employees is the key to the success of democratic capitalism
- Keynesianism: Forever changed the economy (through government deficit spending)
- When the U.S. departed from the gold standard in 1971, the consumer price index skyrocketed
- Although corporate and personal debt has been relatively stable for the past 20 years, government debt has been out of control since Obama was elected in 2008
- Only in response to a major financial crisis will the United States return to the gold standard
- In addition to the government’s tax and expenditure policies that manipulate aggregate demand, there is another option; the supply side of economics is the solution
- The average income of countries with higher economic freedom is much higher than that of countries with lower economic freedom
- A salary increase is only possible if the profit pre-exists to support the salary increase (a salary increase and hope that demand/sales can compensate for the salary increase is a stupid errand)
- Raising the minimum wage leads to three categories of people: 1) those who keep their jobs and thank the government, 2) those who are unemployed and blame their employers, and 3) those who enter the labor market and compete with the first two types of people for those who have fewer jobs.
- Inflation is very unstable; once it is released, it is easy to get out of control
- U.S. money supply will grow by 26% in 2020
- The bubble is entering stocks and real estate; eventually, it will burst
- Natural ways to increase wages: 1) increase bottom line/profit by increasing revenue or cutting costs, 2) increase training and education, 3) companies with higher profit margins tend to pay more wages to employees
- If a company is highly profitable, it will basically pay high wages (graduates entering the labor market should look for high-profit companies)
- Two basic principles of economic prosperity for all: accountability (users pay) and welfare (you help those who need help-but you don’t help those who don’t need it); people don’t like charity, including things like free education (In American society, there is always a struggle between responsibility and welfare)
- Unexpected consequences of raising the minimum wage: 1) Interfering with the employer-employee relationship, 2) rising prices, 3) layoffs, 4) technical impact (worker replacement)
the end.
