......
    "Historically, it has been Big Business, not consumers or progressives, who have been primarily responsible for creating most government regulatory agencies. ... Indeed, virtually all regulatory agencies have had the effect of limiting entry and competition in the industries they oversee." -- Bruce Bartlett
    "The history books say that during the Progressive era, government trustbusters reined in business. Nonsense. Progressive 'reforms' -- railroad regulation, meat inspection, drug certification and the rest -- were done at the behest of big companies that wanted competition managed. They knew regulation would burden smaller companies more than themselves. The strategy works." -- John Stossel
    "As the federal government has progressively become larger over the decades, every significant introduction of government regulation, taxation and spending has been to the benefit of some big business." -- Timothy P. Carney
    "Big business in America today and for some years has been openly at war with competition and, thus, at war with laissez-faire capitalism. ... The left's attack on corporate capitalism is, when examined, an attack on economic forms possible only in collusion between authoritarian government and bureaucratized, nonentrepreneurial business.  It is unfortunate that many New Leftists are so uncritical as to accept this premise as indicating that all forms of capitalism are bad ..." --Karl Hess
    BEWARE THE LIBERAL-CORPORATE COMPLEX!

    Every time you hear a "liberal"* propose a law so asinine it would cripple many small and medium-sized businesses, not to mention mom-and-pop startups, ask yourself:

    • whether or not the end result eliminates competition for well-heeled giant corporations (who are the only ones who can finally afford most of this tomfoolery), 
    • whether it could ever force you or your friends or family members (or your kids' employers!) to go to work for a giant corporation at a point in time when you or they would really rather start a new business or grow an old one beyond any definition of "exempted smallness", 
    • AND whether any of these ideas such as paternal leave, breast-feeding rooms, wheelchair ramps, or whatever might actually have been deliberately invented in the halls of a conniving giant corporation in the first place, smug in their confidence that economically-illiterate do-gooders would take over their advocacy, doing the work of crippling their competition for them from then on...
    • OR (as is often the case) whether these ideas are dreamt up by congressional candidates desperate for campaign contributions, who "sell" them to the corporate targets of their choice. 
    FACT:  In many election years, Fortune 500 contributions to the campaigns of Democrats outweigh Fortune 500 contributions to the campaigns of Republicans AND Libertarians COMBINED.  Corporate contributions to non-profit "leftist" organizations are sometimes more than TRIPLE their contributions to non-profit free-market organizations.        ...and now you can figure out why...

    FACT:  Even in the best of times, 60% to 80% of new small businesses fail, often leaving behind ruined credit ratings, broken dreams, and sometimes, broken homes (Even the "liberal" George McGovern was aghast at the multiple impediments which taxes and regulations presented to his operating the Stratford Inn, which he bought--and eventually declared bankruptcy on--after his retirement from politics.1). The vast majority of those which manage to stay in business are marginal at best. The people who start them are the people who try the hardest, work the longest hours, take the scariest risks, and are often doomed to suffer in silence. If anyone deserves any public "compassion," they do, yet they are universally ignored during debates over public policy, especially by the popular news media. So even though every new regulation and every new tax may force thousands, or even tens of thousands, of these borderline businesses under, the fashion of the day is not to care about them, but about whomever the media is willing to fret about. 

    "Politicians, Like Bombers, Seldom See Their Victims..." -- Dr. Donald Boudreaux, in his article, "Losing Touch"

    * "Liberal?" Doublespeak!! Incredibly, bizarrely, spectacularly twisted doublespeak. The classical meaning of "liberal" was "live-and-let-live." Today, however, that meaning can be ascribed only to libertarian ideas instead. Because nowadays the simple-minded knee-jerk reactionary "pass a law!" big-government control freaks have taken over the term "liberal" to refer to themselves, abetted by the enthusiastic compliance of the philosophically illiterate, extremely short-sighted news media. And even formerly true-blue civil libertarians of the "liberal" persuasion have found themselves in bed with, and even supporting, what in fact are the brethren of their former sworn enemies, the Nazis and other fascists. Take a serious look at their campus thought-police and other self-righteous, nosy, pushy busybodies. See their mean-spirited insistence on "political correctness," and their apparent obliviousness to the fact that such concepts were born in Stalin's Russia, Mao's China and Pol Pot's Cambodia. Talk about Orwellian "doublespeak," this version takes the cake. For a more on the history of "liberal" and other terms, look HERE. 

    "Give a good man great powers, and crooks grab his job.":  Even if you believe Bill Clinton meant well, his Executive Order No. 13083 and other directives have helped pave the way for any real despot to impose a  dictatorship of widespread viciousness. (Come to think of it, Paul Begala, while employed as Clinton's advisor, was quoted as saying "Stroke of the pen, law of the land: kinda cool," and absolutely no one in the major media made a stink about this explicit expression of admiration for dictatorship, perhaps because it reflects their sentiments and agendas.)  The United States was supposed to have a limited government originally, because the founders knew power attracts demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts horseflies. They never had the illusion that only saints would be drawn to public service, as many people (and most journalists) today seem to, despite the horrifically graphic lessons of the 20th century. So now when you combine Clinton and Gore's dictates with all the National ID cards, registries and databases which the multinational corporations, the huge federal bureaucracies, and other global power freaks are pushing, you have all the ingredients of a dictatorship. Any demagogue could use them along with their favorite fear-mongers' tactic of engineering several frightening "terrorist attacks". Then the first thing that would happen afterwards is that everyone seen as an "enemy," or even just a detractor, of the despot and his gang would be hunted down, imprisoned, or worse. Don't tell me you haven't noticed how government executive departments misuse F.B.I. files and sic the I.R.S. and other agencies on anyone seen as a personal threat to a powerful politician. Yes, right here in the good ol' U.S.of A. And yes it can and DOES happen here. With over 2 million people in prison already, and more than half of those for victimless "crimes," you must take pause and realize most people with power are nowhere near benevolent -- no, not "even today." Study well, my friend, how evil principles are turned into bloody reality, and now how it looks from afar. 

    Do see: Big Burden, Little Burden,   Corporations Which Feed the Fangs That Bite Them,   Corporations Give More Than FOUR TIMES as much to Big-Government advocates as they do to Pro-Liberty advocates, and especially,  MOM & POP VS. THE DREAMBUSTERS
     

             1 "MAR 1 - 1990 - Former senator George S. McGovern, of South Dakota, who is struggling for the first time as a small business owner, expresses regret at the myriad of  economically intrusive legislation he sponsored and helped pass while he was in congress: 'I wish I'd done this before I'd run for President. It would've given me insight into the anxiety any independent business man or farmer must have…now I've got to pay the bank every month…I've got to pay the state of Connecticut taxes….It gives you a whole new perspective on what other people worry about.' "
        Sources: 
    Paula Spann, "McGovern's Latest Campaign: Filling Rooms at the Inn," Los Angeles Times, 3-2-90, page E7. Newsmakers, Los Angeles Times, 2-15-91, page E1. 
    Brien Bartels, "Reflections-The Metamorphosis of George McGovern," Liberty, July 1998: page 15. 
      -- A special thanks to Tom Caldwell, whose tireless research turned up the exact quotes
    "If businesses can use government to rig the system to suppress competition, they will." -- John Stossel, in Give Me a Break
    "Major U.S. corporations give more than $2 to left-of-center organizations and activities each year for every $ they give to right-of-center groups." -- Dr. Marvin Olasky
    "Politicians, Like Bombers, Seldom See Their Victims..." -- Donald Boudreaux, Chairman, George Mason University Department of Economics
    "[George Stigler] showed, for instance, that regulators often become dominated by those that are supposed to be regulated - so called 'regulatory capture.' " -- from the Nobel Museum's classifications of Nobel Prizes in microeconomics here. 2
    What a recent SEC chairman "did to the little guys was serious. James Steinkirchner, cochairman of the National Small Public Company Leadership Council, agrees. 'He focused on eliminating [!!!] small companies and favoring big companies,' "   -- from THIS article
    "In fact, the big corporations who understand the regulatory game can actually benefit from it. They can lobby for expensive regulations only the largest corporations can afford, effectively keeping upstarts and competitors at bay." -- Radley Balko, HERE
    "In a free market, consumer sovereignty and competition tend to create instability when sellers learn to game the system too well...  In a technocratic system, it is more difficult for consumers to exercise countervailing power.  Innovative competitors are often precluded by regulation.  Suppliers tend to apply concentrated lobbying power to protect their interests, while the diffuse interests of the consumer are poorly represented in the political process. ... Centralized, regulated systems look good on paper, and they may be effective as they start.  However, market systems learn faster, because competitive innovation prevents a market from getting captured by the incumbents who have learned how to game the system." -- Arnold Kling, HERE
    "'For every $1.00 major corporations gave to conservative and free-market groups, they gave $4.61 to organizations seeking more government,' according to a study by the Capital Research Center, a Washington think tank." -- Thomas Sowell, HERE
    "In the 2004 presidential election campaign 92% of contributions of $1 million or more went to Democrats. Pro-Democratic 527s, meanwhile, spent more than twice as much as their GOP counterparts." -- Jacob Laksin, referring to the statistics in Byron York's new book, The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.   ||   WHICH is the party of the rich?  See  THIS. 
    "While it would be silly and ungracious to insist that intelligent deliberation on public issues is nowhere found in modern communities, it would be naive to imagine that wise deliberation can survive the constant pounding from self-interested political behavior. Benevolence in public institutions has a short half-life no matter how noble its original intentions." and "Once [a] program is in place, its day-to-day administration falls into the hands of a professional cadre besieged by powerful interest groups whose influence grows as public interest wanes. . . . A slow process of disintegration and reconfiguration sets in, transforming and expanding a program from within." -- Richard A. Epstein, Principles for a Free Society
    "Try walking the halls of Congress. It's Abercrombie & Fitch meets the Hair Club for Men. Lots of  really photogenic young people kissing up to lots of insufferable blowhards. Separated by one or two generations, most of these players have only one real thing in common: They have never been weaned from the public teat. The closest they've ever come to meeting a payroll is when they come together to spend everyone else's payroll taxes." -- Michelle Malkin, here. 
    Sneering Arrogance Dept., Super Control-Freaks' Section
    "Let them eat cake"
    "The ['Hillary Care'] plan prescribed some eye popping maximum fines:$5,000 for refusing to join the government mandated health plan; $5,000 for failing to pay premiums on time; 15 years in prison for doctors who received ‘anything of value’ in exchange for helping patients short circuit bureaucracy; $10,000 a day for faulty physician paperwork; and $50,000 for unauthorized patient treatment. When told the plan could bankrupt small businesses, Mrs. Clinton said, 'I can’t be responsible for every under-capitalized small business in America.'" 
         -- Tony Snow reporting on Hillary's health care plan, to which Zoh Hieronimus added, "Perhaps Hillary’s legacy will be that she made fascism seem lady-like."
    "Clinton realized that America could not economically afford the Protocol Gore negotiated. The Clinton-Gore's Energy Department found Kyoto would lead to $400 billion a year in lost output. ... Gore tries to throw Enron on the back of the current administration. But it was Enron Board Chairman Kenneth Lay who sold Clinton-Gore on Kyoto's cap and trade system.  Gore, Clinton, and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin met with Lay on Aug. 7, 1997 to go over goals and procedures for the Kyoto session. ... The corporate smoking memo here was not that from an ExxonMobil adviser to oppose Dr. Watson, but the Enron internal memo saying Kyoto 'would do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative'." -- Ken Adelman HERE.
    "Being a politician means never having to say you're sorry.  You don't have to say, 'I never should have voted to subsidize that ridiculous Enron project in India.'  ... After all, they're greedy businessmen and you're a selfless public servant."-- Harry Browne
    "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions  in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." -- Thomas Sowell
    Enron, of course, is exactly the kind of corporation which could not exist in pure capitalism.  As a creature, in effect, of politicians, it was deliberately converted from a small pipeline company into an international conglomerate by conniving scoundrels who designed it from the beginning to use the power of their politician-friends to give it government contracts, subsidies, monopoly powers, and favorable regulations to force prospective customers to do business with them, essentially at gunpoint.  Obviously, this is  is fascism, not capitalism, and what you get more and more of when you work to transform what was once the rule of clear-cut law into the rule of men (especially agenda-driving, nuance-inventing judges and lawyers).
    "[There is a] strong correlation between market freedom and lower government corruption -- not terribly surprising, since the effect of increasing regulatory power is to shift 'cheating' from the private to the public sphere." -- Julian Sanchez
    "Take a look at how the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies have totally snookered the politically-correct media and liberal establishments into fighting a 'War on Smoking' for them.  After all, absolutely none of their anxiety drugs can quell anxiety or panic attacks anywhere near as cheaply, quickly or  thoroughly as a cigarette can." -- Bert Rand
    "Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as was the scorpion in Aesop to the dog on whose back he crossed the river. They will destroy commerce and establish socialism, even if it kills them, because that is their nature."  -- John Derbyshire

    TO CONTINUE, SEE: THE REGULATORY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HERE.

    .2This usually means that governmental (political) regulators often become dominated by the largest members of the industry supposedly being regulated -- to the detriment of their newer and smaller competitors. Contrast such a flawed and vulnerable system with that represented by U.L. (Underwriters' Laboratories, a private regulatory agency), which has proven to be totally untouchable by those they regulate, beholden as it is to the insurance companies who control and empower it.  Notice that the FDA, for example, has on its board former directors of the very largest pharmaceutical companies (who often return to those boards after their terms of so-called "public service" are over).  It's no small coincidence these giant firms have been engaged in an orgy of buying out their smaller competitors for years, thanks to the outrageously expensive, draconian and crippling regulations the giants have been successful in arranging for. Also see Airline Deregulation Revisited  and The Price We Pay for the FDA

    of related interest see: Private Rights and Public Illusions,  How the moderately wealthy got that way,
    The Corporate Origins of Environmental Regulations, How Big Tobacco, Big States and Big  Law Firms Conspire, and
    An example of how the super-wealthy enviro-chic can carelessly give those on modest incomes the shaft HERE,
    An example of how "working families" from Malibu, Beverly Hills, Palm Beach and the Hamptons fund campaigns HERE,
    An example of how the really wealthy can display an abundance of hypocrisy and a pathetic lack of common sense HERE,  and
    An example of how the wealthy imbecile-chic want to disarm small shopkeepers (the people who need handguns the most) while demonstrating how, if you can afford to hire someone to carry the gun for you, that's okay HERE.
    Find a discussion of WHICH political/economic systems foster coercive monopolies HERE.
    Even the professional resentment-peddler Michael Moore, darling of juvenile Marxists everywhere, admitted in a revealing moment of vengeance mixed with a kernel or two of actual honest observation:"You know in my town the small businesses that everyone wanted to protect? They were the people that supported all the right-wing groups," he ranted. "They were the Republicans in town ... F--- all these small businesses--f--- 'em all. ..." -- reported HERE.

    Competition-Fearing, Regulation-Loving Big Businesses

    Wealthiest Donors Give More to Democrats

    Big Business Forged Its Own Chains

    Regulatory capture in Bordeaux

    The Capital Research Center

    The Governor's Friends

    The Green Gestapo

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