This was an excellent discussion. Not explicitly mentioned is the fact that Musk, Buffet, Bezos and Gates are also some of the biggest welfare recipients in the history of the country. Everything that Musk does is one giant government boondoogle from which he skims and builds his stock value, which is based purely on future promise. Buffet took a massive bailout during the “Great Recession”, without which he might have had to sell something to pay his bills. Bezos’ Amazon was never profitable, but he was able to capture market share and build stock values based on volume, all because he was able to undercut the competition due to family influence that allowed him to get preferential pricing with the post office. Now most of his income comes from government contracts. Gates is the nations largest owner of farmland entitling him to payment from various farm subsidy programs. Most farm subsidy checks are not delivered to family farmers, but to Wall St. addresses. This is beyond welfare and even ordinary theft. They are strip-mining the wealth of the nation.
Michael,
Gates bought land everywhere in preparation for his businesses to utilize government funds for the green energy/wind energy investments. It’s perfectly legal, ugly, libertarian and American.
But I appreciate your understanding of how it’s actually accomplished and what is really meant when politicians talk about government and private enterprise working together. Hunter Biden has supposedly mastered the art and although he has acquired common vices in the process, his motives are strictly personal, libertarian, ugly and as American as Bill Gates, Sean Hannity or the senior Senator from South Carolina.
I would not describe myself as a libertarian although I have a great deal of respect for those right thinking libertarians such as Murray Rothbard and Justin Raimondo with whom we paleocons could rationally converse. I, personally, would not describe what the oligarchs are up to as, in any way, libertarian, nor do I think that Rothbard or Raimondo would. This is merely semantics though and no reason for dispute. The main point is that they have completely captured our system of government in such a way that at every turn we are paying them a toll. They contribute nothing beneficial to society and have stolen from the hard working people of this country and the world everything that they own. In the old days they at least had to provide for law and order and defense, but now, seeing how profitable anarcho-tyranny can be, they are actively working against order. This will all come back to bite them hard in the end, but many of us will not survive to see it. God always has the last word. Glory to God in the Highest!
You are absolutely correct. Musk is the biggest welfare loafer in the country. Snarky leftists love to criticize Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. for the percentages of their people who take welfare, when in fact, the biggest recipients of welfare are the oligarchs and those who live in and around DC and rely on our taxes for their daily bread.
Michael,
Yes I respected Raimondo too he was loyal to his friends, especially Pat Buchanan, and to the end. As for the rest, I will agree with the “merely semantic” and convenient uses of concepts like liberty and freedom, or virtue and vice, or laws and men in these times.
Thank you for your kind understanding Mr. Reavis. We can become too hung up on ideological terminology when in fact we are in full agreement on all of the most important aspects of an issue. You end with non-ideological terms on which, I am confident, as loyal supporters of the Fleming Foundation and the Institute and Magazine of yore, we are in substantial agreement.
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This was an excellent discussion. Not explicitly mentioned is the fact that Musk, Buffet, Bezos and Gates are also some of the biggest welfare recipients in the history of the country. Everything that Musk does is one giant government boondoogle from which he skims and builds his stock value, which is based purely on future promise. Buffet took a massive bailout during the “Great Recession”, without which he might have had to sell something to pay his bills. Bezos’ Amazon was never profitable, but he was able to capture market share and build stock values based on volume, all because he was able to undercut the competition due to family influence that allowed him to get preferential pricing with the post office. Now most of his income comes from government contracts. Gates is the nations largest owner of farmland entitling him to payment from various farm subsidy programs. Most farm subsidy checks are not delivered to family farmers, but to Wall St. addresses. This is beyond welfare and even ordinary theft. They are strip-mining the wealth of the nation.
Michael,
Gates bought land everywhere in preparation for his businesses to utilize government funds for the green energy/wind energy investments. It’s perfectly legal, ugly, libertarian and American.
But I appreciate your understanding of how it’s actually accomplished and what is really meant when politicians talk about government and private enterprise working together. Hunter Biden has supposedly mastered the art and although he has acquired common vices in the process, his motives are strictly personal, libertarian, ugly and as American as Bill Gates, Sean Hannity or the senior Senator from South Carolina.
Mr. Reavis,
I would not describe myself as a libertarian although I have a great deal of respect for those right thinking libertarians such as Murray Rothbard and Justin Raimondo with whom we paleocons could rationally converse. I, personally, would not describe what the oligarchs are up to as, in any way, libertarian, nor do I think that Rothbard or Raimondo would. This is merely semantics though and no reason for dispute. The main point is that they have completely captured our system of government in such a way that at every turn we are paying them a toll. They contribute nothing beneficial to society and have stolen from the hard working people of this country and the world everything that they own. In the old days they at least had to provide for law and order and defense, but now, seeing how profitable anarcho-tyranny can be, they are actively working against order. This will all come back to bite them hard in the end, but many of us will not survive to see it. God always has the last word. Glory to God in the Highest!
Mr. Strenk,
You are absolutely correct. Musk is the biggest welfare loafer in the country. Snarky leftists love to criticize Alabama, West Virginia, Arkansas, etc. for the percentages of their people who take welfare, when in fact, the biggest recipients of welfare are the oligarchs and those who live in and around DC and rely on our taxes for their daily bread.
Michael,
Yes I respected Raimondo too he was loyal to his friends, especially Pat Buchanan, and to the end. As for the rest, I will agree with the “merely semantic” and convenient uses of concepts like liberty and freedom, or virtue and vice, or laws and men in these times.
Thank you for your kind understanding Mr. Reavis. We can become too hung up on ideological terminology when in fact we are in full agreement on all of the most important aspects of an issue. You end with non-ideological terms on which, I am confident, as loyal supporters of the Fleming Foundation and the Institute and Magazine of yore, we are in substantial agreement.