These are things I believe to be true. I cannot guarantee everything to be precisely and factually accurate no matter how much I would like to do so. Like every human, I am fallible. Much of what I believe is my opinion supported only by my understanding of the situations. It is likely that in some instances I may change these statements as new or differing information comes to my attention. This information may be altered, deleted, or added to from time to time for an almost limitless number of reasons.

First of all, I believe that free men, mostly of good character, will always be able to far excel in virtually any endeavor those who to any degree are not free. For this reason, and with adequate and overwhelming proof, I believe free enterprise always has and always will exceed government in any organized activity. That is why I believe capitalism has always and will always be better than socialism in every conceivable way.

In a free and democratic nation like the United States there are literally thousands of independent companies from small to large to huge, all of which; operate under similar rules and restraints; hire employees who then participate in the financial success of the company; conduct business with other individuals, companies, and governments; manufacture or handle products and offer services; pay taxes and fees to several levels of government; and do all these things while hopefully making a profit for their owners. There is only one enterprise in America that pays no taxes, creates no wealth, creates no jobs, and has virtually no restraint or requirement of efficiency while consuming steadily increasing amounts of the wealth created by the private sector by taxation. Government is a single, huge, monopoly with no competition and thus no incentive to operate efficiently. In fact, there is a great incentive for middle managers in the government to make work and hire more employees in order to increase the scope of their operations and so make their job more important. Baseline budgeting as practiced throughout our federal government is and officially sanctioned method of insuring that this happen in every department. Empire builders are far more common in government than in private business where their expensive practices are soon weeded out by economic necessity.

In spite of the fact that government attracts different kinds of workers than private enterprise is well known let’s assume them as a group to be the same—some honest and hard working—some dishonest and slothful, and that those in between these extremes are of similar proportion. Since the private enterprises must make a profit to stay in business, too many bad or slothful employees, or just a few in high positions will eventually destroy the profitability of the company and it will go out of business. This is an automatic and highly efficient operation which weeds out those companies which fail the efficiency test and eventually removes those “bad” employees from the workforce. There is no such automatic system in government so employees that fail stay in place or are moved to a position where, “they will do no harm.” Costs drastically escalate as nonproductive workers are rarely fired or even demoted in rank or pay.

One example of this was explained to me many years ago by the Chicago postmaster as we happened to sit together on a flight from Iowa to Chicago. The post office had inaugurated a training program aimed at entry level employees and particularly those with little or poor education and weak skills. They would hire these individuals into a four week training program and pay them while they trained. At the end of the four weeks the trainees were tested for skills they had supposedly learned that were required for their new jobs. Those that passed were given jobs while those that didn’t were cycled back through the same training program along with newly hired trainees. When the program started, a trainee could pass through the training three times, but if they did not pass the test after the third time they were let go. There were a total of twenty trainees in the initial program.

The Postal Workers Union filed a suit in Federal court charging the release of the trainees after failing the test three times was a breach of their contract and thus illegal. The union won. The Post Office would have to either give them a job or continue them in the training program. At the time of his conversation with me thirty trainees were locked in the program who were likely never to pass the employment test. The program had to be discontinued and the Post Office had reverted to its earlier practice of hiring only those applicants who could pass the test before they were hired. I have no idea what happened to the thirty who were in the program, but I know they couldn’t be released. They may still be in paid training as far as I know.

How long would any private company stay in business if required to act this way? How many private companies have gone out of or lost business when they were caught in this type of trap? How about the American automobile industry and the competitive advantage Toyota, for instance, has over them with nearly $2,000 per vehicle cost for union benefits and make-work policies American automakers have that Toyota does not? That’s one example of where private business emulates government with disastrous results. Auto workers are now beginning to realize the damage these practices are inflicting on their own companies have resulted in major loss of business, profits and jobs. As a result, corrective measures are being implemented, often over the powerful resistance of the UAW who still don’t seem to realize that their efforts to get “more” for their workers is instead yielding “less.”

The long standing movement of manufacturing jobs to other nations with cheaper labor and the rapid growth of the illegal immigrant economy within our country are the direct result of jobs being “costed” out of the pay scale demanded by many Americans. There is no evil conspiracy behind this, just unfeeling and uncontrollable economic pressure. While manufacturing jobs fall victim to globalization and many non manufacturing jobs go to illegals, the American work force suffers. Still, in many industries, American determination, effort, ingenuity and efficiency generate new jobs and have kept our economy moving and growing as never before. I fear that sooner or later it will all catch up with us as China, India, and other rapidly expanding economies serve not only their export markets, but their own burgeoning domestic markets as well. Socialism will never defeat us economically, but the growing newly freed entrpreneurial and capitalistic economies of the developing world will. Evidence of this dramatic reversal of form in China is amply demonstrated by the remarks of the Chinese head of state in Tom Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, 2.0. The current leader of China, a scientist and engineer reportedly announced, “Profits are good! Business is good! Free enterprise is good! Capitalism is good!”

It’s easy to see and realize the growing economic demise of American industry. We hear about it every day. Can our government be far behnd? The government which is doubtless loaded with similar unwarranted expenses need only say to Congress, “give us more money,” and it is given. There is absolutely no incentive to seek more efficiency so the bureaucracy grows, costs go up, and Congress votes more taxes. I’ll wager that a private contractor program in government where virtually all of the work now done by bureaucrats and their minions is contracted out to private business would cut our cost of government bureaucracy to a third of what it is today. At the same time it would be done better, faster, and then there would be the tax revenue generated by all these businesses.

Socialism and capitalism. I firmly believe Karl Marx, William Engels, in fact, all the old socialist/communist writers and gurus may have been right about socialism defeating unbridled monopolistic capitalism, but they were dead wrong about the controlled American variety. They would also be all wrong about the rapidly growing Chinese variety as well. Should the Chinese version become as powerful politically as it is becoming economically I fear the communist leadership will clamp down as they did in Tienneman Square with military power and brutality in possibly another “cultural revolution.”

People in monopolist positions of power or who actively seek such will do what is necessary to hold on to or gain that power even if it destroys their nation, company or organization. I see the current liberal Democrats in our nation as doing just that right now. That they are fully invested in our defeat in and withdrawal from Iraq is obvious to all but their most blind and unyielding supporters. (Thanks Harry Reid for announcing, “we have lost in Iraq and must pull out now.”) I don’t think they care a bit about the amount or what kind of damage they do to our country, or how many people die as long as they gain or regain power. This is quite clear when one considers the Viet Nam war and our defeat and withdrawal orchestrated by a powerful alliance of anti-war activists (sincere and opportunistic), a proactive media, and self-serving politicians making military as well as political decisions and micro-managing areas where they had virtually no expertise. Those mentioned surely hold at least partial responsibility for the millions slaughtered after and as a result of our departure. (Some sources claim more than three million were butchered.) Should the same thing happen in Iraq, those actually responsible, the stop-the-war-and-pull-out crowd, will blame the ensuing massacre on GW and the Republicans. With the media echoing their hate mantra, many Americans will do just that—blame it on GW and the Republicans, This, of course, is precisely what liberal Democrats in this country and socialists, communist, radical Islamists and all the other hate-America crowds all over the world want. What they will do virtually anything to prevent is success in Iraq—an independent and free Iraq that works politically—for obvious reasons.