Profits And People Go Together

At the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee, the senator from New York said, “The oil companies reported the highest profits in the history of the world. I want to take those profits and I want to put them in an alternative energy fund.”

Still planning to vote for her? Think of what she is saying.

“I want to take those profits.”

Boy oh boy. After living down her aborted plan to nationalize 14 percent of the nation’s economy she doesn’t seem to have learned anything.

What happened to private property? What happened to limited government?

“I want to put them in an alternative energy fund.”

There’s a lot of malarkey talked about alternative energy. So far, it is expensive energy favored by, and likely to benefit, only liberals and farmers. From a practical point of view, just to keep them off our backs, it seems reasonable to give liberals some play money so they can build wind farms in the high Sierras—but not in sight of Ted Kennedy’s compound in Hyannisport. And why not pay some farmers to grow switchgrass on the High Plains?

But to talk of taking oil company profits and putting them in an alternative energy fund—well, that strips the veil of the alternative energy game. It reveals it for what it is: Yet another Democratic plan for patronage, privilege, and subsidies.

But let’s get back to ExxonMobil. As Kudlow points out, ExxonMobil made $377 billion in sales; paid taxes of $100 billion; reported profits of $40 billion.

So, for Hillary Clinton, presumably, taxes of 25 percent of sales isn’t enough.

Still planning to vote for Hillary Clinton?

Let’s get this straight. A corporation that makes a profit is a corporation that is using resources wisely. A corporation that reports a loss is a corporation that is wasting valuable natural and human resources.

Hillary Clinton wants to turn ExxonMobil’s profit into a loss.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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Faith & Purpose

“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990

Mutual Aid

In 1911... at least nine million of the 12 million covered by national insurance were already members of voluntary sick pay schemes. A similar proportion were also eligible for medical care.
Green, Reinventing Civil Society

Education

“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State

Living Under Law

Law being too tenuous to rely upon in [Ulster and the Scottish borderlands], people developed patterns of settling differences by personal fighting and family feuds.
Thomas Sowell, Conquests and Cultures

German Philosophy

The primary thing to keep in mind about German and Russian thought since 1800 is that it takes for granted that the Cartesian, Lockean or Humean scientific and philosophical conception of man and nature... has been shown by indisputable evidence to be inadequate.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West

Knowledge

Inquiry does not start unless there is a problem... It is the problem and its characteristics revealed by analysis which guides one first to the relevant facts and then, once the relevant facts are known, to the relevant hypotheses.
F.S.C. Northrop, The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities

Chappies

“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.” —Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

Democratic Capitalism

I mean three systems in one: a predominantly market economy; a polity respectful of the rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and a system of cultural institutions moved by ideals of liberty and justice for all. In short, three dynamic and converging systems functioning as one: a democratic polity, an economy based on markets and incentives, and a moral-cultural system which is plural and, in the largest sense, liberal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Action

The incentive that impels a man to act is always some uneasiness... But to make a man act [he must have] the expectation that purposeful behavior has the power to remove or at least to alleviate the felt uneasiness.
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Churches

[In the] higher Christian churches… they saunter through the liturgy like Mohawks along a string of scaffolding who have long since forgotten their danger. If God were to blast such a service to bits, the congregation would be, I believe, genuinely shocked. But in the low churches you expect it every minute.
Annie Dillard, Holy the Firm

Conversion

“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh

Living Law

The recognition and integration of extralegal property rights [in the Homestead Act] was a key element in the United States becoming the most important market economy and producer of capital in the world.
Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital

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