forgottenliberty.com

The communist regime of North Korea, following in the foot steps of China, was forced to abandon it’s planned, centralized, government controlled economy in favor of a free market in order to keep it’s citizens from starving to death.  The economic policies of communism/socialism/Marxism have shown themselves once again to be unsustainable.  The Washington Post has the story,

Bowing to reality, the North Korean government has lifted all restrictions on private markets — a last-resort option for a leadership desperate to prevent its people from starving.  In recent weeks, according to North Korea observers and defector groups with sources in the country, Kim Jong Il’s government admitted its inability to solve the current food shortage and encouraged its people to rely on private markets for the purchase of goods. (emphasis mine)

In essence, the communist government of North Korea has realized it is unable to ration food and control the economy in a sustainable way and has given up trying.  Food has always been in short supply in North Korea.  Because of this, a large black market developed over the years that provided much of the Communist citizenry with food.  However, many of the merchants involved in the black market food trade began to acquire some degree (by North Korean standards) of wealth.  This was understandably an outrage to any self respecting communist/socialist/Marxist regime.  It’s just downright evil for someone to make a buck by selling food to hungry comrades, right?

In order to stick it to the ‘greedy’ black market capitalist who were feeding the nation,

It seems that once again, government regulation is making things worse for consumers and businesses.  A new regulation on airlines is about to kick in this April.  It involves a hefty fine if passengers are stuck inside a plane for more than 3 hours without taking off.  To avoid this fine, airlines will be canceling flights if there is any chance of a delay.  From USA today,

The government announced in December it would fine airlines $27,500 per passenger for long tarmac delays — or $2.75 million for a 100-passenger flight.

Cancellations cost far less than a huge fine, especially since seats are routinely prepaid and airlines save fuel cost.

“You’re not going to get penalized for tarmac delays if you don’t fly the flight,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor John Hansman, an aviation expert.

$27,500 per passenger is an extreme amount of money, especially when you realize that many jets hold 180 or more passengers.  Airlines are in business to make money, not pay fines to the government.  With fines this large, airlines will be forced to cancel delayed flights just to stay in business.  According to the same USA Today article, JetBlue

Thursday, the Supreme Court struck a victory for the 1st amendment by declaring large portions of the McCain-Feingold finance law unconstitutional.  Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority said,

…when Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.

By striking this down this bad law, large donors (including corporations) will now be able to purchase air time for political ads leading up to an election.  This did not go over well with liberals and I’ll tell you 2 reasons why.

Reason 1

Up until now, corporations had to give money directly to candidates because they could not spend it on advertising.  In the 2008 election, corporations donated significantly more money to Democrat candidates than Republicans.  Here are a few examples.  The percentages may surprise you.

1 Act Blue $3,151,038 100% Dem 0% GOP Solidly Democratic

2 Goldman-Sachs $1,656,954 71% DEM 29% GOP Strongly Democratic

3 Citigroup Inc. $1,582,857 63% Dem 37% GOP Leans Democratic

4 JP Morgan Chase & Co. $1,171,720 68% Dem 32% GOP Strongly Democratic

5 AT&T Inc. $1,094,144 45% Dem 55% GOP On the fence

6 UBS AG $1,068,953 62% Dem 38% GOP Leans Democratic

7 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $947,815 98% Dem 2% GOP Solidly Democratic

8 Laborers Union $924,500 91% Dem 9%GOP Solidly Democratic

9 Morgan Stanley $923,850 62% Dem 38%GOP Leans Democratic

Now that these companies can actually purchase ads on TV, they will most likely use their money for flashy 30 second commercials instead of giving directly to politicians.  This means Democrats (and plenty of Republicans) will loose money that they have grown accustomed to receiving.  They don’t like this and now Obama and the rest of them are whining about it.

Reason 2

Today, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had a “computer glitch” that caused flight delays and cancellations nationwide.  This is the second time in about 15 months where the FAA has had computer problems causing major headaches for the airlines travelers. From cnn.com,

FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said the system went out at 5:06 a.m. ET and came back on about five hours later. He said officials working to pinpoint the cause know that there was a problem with the main telecommunications systems.

“It was an efficiency problem rather than a safety problem, but it was a serious efficiency problem,” Takemoto said.

Due to the outage, air traffic controllers had to enter flight plans manually, a problem that causes delays, according to the FAA and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

The air traffic controllers’ group said the problem will cause flight delays throughout the day because of a “domino effect.”

“Air traffic controllers are without electronic decision-making tools and cannot keep up with the sheer numbers of flights — resulting in delays,” the controllers’ group said in a statement during the outage.

“Air traffic controllers on the ground at major airports are getting no automated flight plan information and have to enter that information manually, a cumbersome and time-consuming process

Those of you who know me personally know that I work for a major U.S. airline.  This means I see the inefficiencies of the FAA and the government run air traffic control (ATC) system on a daily basis.  Of course, because passengers never see the government employees in the ATC tower, they blame the airlines and the airline employees for problems like today.

The FAA and ATC computer systems are extremely outdated because it literally takes an act of Congress to upgrade them.  The GPS system in our cell phones and cars is a more sophisticated tracking system than what the ATC uses but again, it takes an act of Congress to upgrade.  Have you ever been in a plane that sat on the tarmac for hours waiting to take off?  Do you want to know why you had to sit their and miss your business meeting?  Here’s a hint…

Big Government has failed in the United Kingdom, according to the British publication The Sun.  The Labour party has had control of the British government for 12 years, and it has failed.  Aren’t we heading down the same path?  Our own government is growing at a record pace and so is our debt.  Government can’t solve all of our problems, not even most of them, so why do so many people still believe it can?  Here is an excerpt from an article in The Sun. When you see the word Labour, insert “big, liberal, socialist government.”

Labour FAILED on schools. Yes, facilities improved – but four in 10 kids leave those shiny classrooms still unable to read, write or add up properly. We are plummeting down international league tables for maths and literacy, but every year “grade inflation” ensures record GCSE and A-level passes to fuel Government propaganda.

Labour FAILED on health – spending billions on clipboard-ticking target managers instead of on frontline care.

Labour FAILED on immigration, opening our borders without any regard to the consequences. Illegal migrants and bogus asylum seekers poured in.

Labour FAILED the children they claimed to have made their priority. After 12 years of Blair and Brown, Britain is officially the WORST country in the developed world in which to grow up.

Most disgracefully of all, Labour FAILED our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving them to die through chronic under-funding and the shambolic leadership of dismal Defence Secretaries like Bob Ainsworth.

As our forces in two war zones suffered, the scale of Government waste at home was mind-boggling and tragic:

Billions blown employing a useless layer of public service middle-managers like those who condemned Baby P to die.

Billions more spent, insanely, making benefits more lucrative than a pay cheque – creating a huge, idle underclass for whom work is a dirty word. And all along the Government has had one overriding concern: Itself.

We are seeing the same thing in this country.  The U.K. is a few years ahead of us, but make no mistake, we are traveling down the same road that has failed the British.  Why?  Because we the people have not educated ourselves and our children on the proper role of government.  We have believed the lies of our politicians.  The vast majority of which only want to hold onto their power and will tell whatever lies allow them to do it.

What can we do to fix our country?  The article goes on,

Democrat Senator Mark Warner admitted that government run health care is unconstitutional.  This video is almost a month old and I can’t believed I missed it because Warner is one of my Senators.   It reminds me of how poorly we in the Commonwealth of Virginia are represented in the Senate.  In this video, Senator Warner is asked what article and section of the Constitution gives the government the authority to take over the health care industry.  He responds by trying to discredit the person who asked the question.  Then, he brilliantly says that people don’t have a Constitutional right to a telephone.  Yes you read that correctly.  A former governor and current United States Senator responds by saying that we don’t have a Constitutional right to a phone.  How are we supposed to turn our country around when our political leaders can’t even answer simple questions?  How can we trust them when they knowingly violate the Constitution that they swore an oath to uphold?