Powell on Iraq Lies
Morals and Liberty
Katrina and New Orleans
Understanding "Price Gouging" and Price Controls
Nuclear News from McGuinty's Ontario

www.thecouriermail.news.com.au, Sep 9 '05    
Powell recalls war speech 'blot'

FORMER US secretary of state Colin Powell has said his UN speech making the case for the US-led war on Iraq was "a blot" on his record.

...After the invasion US weapons inspectors reported finding no Iraqi nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

He also said that he had never seen evidence of a connection between the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Iraqi regime.

www.libertyhaven.com, F.A. Harper   
Morals and Liberty

In the admirable words of Thomas Davidson: "That which is not free is not responsible, and that which is not responsible is not moral." This means that free choice is a prerequisite of morality.

...The Golden Rule-the rule of refraining from imposing on others what I would not have them impose on me -...

... (1) Thou shalt not steal. (2) Thou shalt not covet...

Good ends cannot be attained by evil means...

Lord Acton said: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." ...

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.    
The State and the Flood

"No one can escape the influence of a prevailing ideology," wrote Ludwig von Mises, and Gulf Coast residents know precisely what it means to be trapped—ostensibly by a flood but actually by statist policies and ideological commitments that put the government in charge of crisis management and public infrastructure. For what we are seeing in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast region is the most egregious example of government failure in the United States since September 11, 2001.

mises.org, William Anderson, Aug 29 '05    
How To Create A Shortage

Yet, the whole program [government of Hawaii holding down the price of gasoline] is based upon a fallacy of economics — one that has haunted economics for centuries — and even though economists have debunked this fallacy for more than 130 years, it still lives on. The fallacy is this: the price of a final (consumer) good is determined by its cost of production...

...the only reason that traders are willing to pay those prices for crude oil is because they believe that individuals are willing to purchase fuels refined from crude at prices that will enable those original purchases to be profitable.

mises.org, David M. Brown, Aug 17 '04    
Price Gouging Saves Lives

mises.org, Hal Cranmer, Sep 13 '05    
Go After the [Real] Price Gougers

Like so much of what the government does, there are unintended consequences for messing with the laws of nature. In the case of the price gouging assault, by denying price increases the government actually causes greater scarcity. Prices lower than the market price (especially in an emergency) will cause a run on the good and service. Then people who see the good first are able to buy the good rather than those who need it the most (and are most willing to pay for it).

www.thestar.com, Sep 15 '05    
Premier open to new nuclear plants

Premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday made his strongest commitment yet to more nuclear power plants in Ontario, despite the industry's history in this province of huge cost overruns and sky-high repairs.

"We are prepared to go ahead with ... new nuclear if that is recommended by the OPA," McGuinty told the Ontario Energy Association's annual general meeting, referring to the Ontario Power Authority.

The Premier expressed skepticism of whether there is such a thing as cleaner-burning coal. He says, "I'm not going to build my clean energy plan on a wing and a prayer."

I think individual consumers in Ontario should be deciding on their own energy plans through a proper free market. I don't believe that any man, no matter how god-like, has the ability or the right to decide what is best for all of us. To me, nuclear power is a potential danger. It might work in a system where property rights are properly respected and investors used only their own money - not funds from taxpayers. It might work if they were required to pay compensation for every spill to property owners (but the lakes are currently publicly administered so there are no owners to care) and if they had to pay the full costs to dump nuclear waste on private property - OR it might NOT work. In a pure free-market situation without any subsidies, you would quickly discover whether nuclear power was really that safe and reliable and whether people could afford it. Personally, I wouldn't buy it if I had a choice, because I believe it is wrong to leave nuclear waste sitting around for future generations.

But none of us has a choice. That's the point. The Premier knows what is best for all of us!