Singapore on This Day in History

This day in history: Singapore separates from the Federation of Malaysia and gains its independence on this day in 1965. However, the real story is that Singapore was expelled from Malaysia and became the only country to date to gain independence unwillingly. It all worked out though as the Singapore economy is now known as one of the freest, most innovative, most competitive, most dynamic and the most business-friendly.

Singapore is also one of only three surviving city-states in the world. The other two are Monaco and Vatican City. Singapore has four official languages: English, Chinese, Tamil, and Malay. Buildings in Singapore cannot be higher than 280 metres. Singapore has taken extreme measures to reduce vehicle usage. A Certificate of Entitlement (COE) is required, costing more than S$80,000 to successful bidders. This permits ownership of the vehicle for a period of 10 years after which the vehicle must be scrapped or another COE paid for allowing an additional 5 or 10 years of usage. Certain roads and expressways in Singapore are subject to the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system. COEs and the ERP system are intended to encourage people to use public transport such as the Mass Rapid Transit and public buses instead of driving.

The 1861 Income Tax on This Day in History

This Day in History: The United States government levied the first income tax on this day in 1861 to pay for the war effort. This tax was 3% of all incomes over US$800; and it was rescinded in 1872. "This adherence to a terminal date is worth noting; it is a left-handed admission that the taxation of incomes was generally held to be obnoxious, perhaps unconstitutional, and was tolerated only as a temporary necessity."~Frank Chodorov

A more permanant income tax would come 50 years later under Woodrow Wilson in 1913, a man who also gave us World War I, the League of Nations, and Conscription (the draft). The income tax is bureaucratic slavery, after all, we work for months to pay, not ourselves, but someone else. Prior to the passage of the 16th Amendment (income tax) in 1913, the United States government funded its operations mainly through excise taxes, tariffs, customs duties and public land sales. 

Some have gone to great extremes to prove that the income tax was illegal and unconstitutional, notably Irwin Schiff who died in an American prison as a political prisoner.

Dickens Knew Taxes Started the French Revolution
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2017/06/dickens-knew-taxes-started-french.html

How They Viewed an Income Tax Over 100 Years Ago
https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-they-viewed-income-tax-over-100.html

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

For a list of all of my disks and ebooks (PDF and Amazon) click here

President Warren Harding on This Day in History

Video Presentation about the Crash of 1921

This Day In History: President Warren Harding died on this day in 1923. Many call him the worst president, but he may be one of the best. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. Despite objections, he reduced government spending. He simply let the market revive on its own and as a result the 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923.

"For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to 'do something' when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to 'do something' in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent...history shows that the economy rebounded out of a worse unemployment situation in just two years under Harding, who simply let the market revive on its own, as it had done before, time and time again for more than a century."~Thomas Sowell

"With tax rates cut for all groups, Americans invented or expanded such businesses as air conditioning, talking movies, radios, refrigerators, telephones, and air travel. The Roaring ‘20s launched with Harding’s assumption that greater freedom and less government would increase prosperity for all groups. The 1920s would also become the last decade in US history to see annual budget surpluses every year. Almost one-third of the federal debt disappeared under Harding and Coolidge."~Burton Folsom

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

American Economist Milton Friedman on This Day in History

This day in history: American economist Milton Friedman was born on this day in 1912. The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century ... possibly of all of it". Friedman was an advisor to Republican President Ronald Reagan and Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal intervention. He was certainly a great and quotable communicator:

"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."

"Inflation is taxation without legislation."

"Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned."

"The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem."

"A society that puts equality... ahead of freedom will end up with neither."

"Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless."

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

"When everybody owns something, nobody owns it, and nobody has a direct interest in maintaining or improving its condition. That is why buildings in the Soviet Union -- like public housing in the United states -- look decrepit within a year or two of their construction."

“The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

George Taylor on This Day In History

This Day in History: Industrial Relations professor George W. Taylor was born on this day in 1901. He came up with what is known as the Hemline Index theory. The theory suggests that hemlines on women's dresses rise along with stock prices. In good economies, we get such results as miniskirts (as seen in the 1920s and the 1960s), or in poor economic times, as shown by the 1929 Wall Street Crash, hems can drop almost overnight. Of course this index is almost useless now that many women wear pants.

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

French Economist Frederic Bastiat on This Day in History

The Law, by Bastiat

This Day In History: Economist Frederic Bastiat was born on this day in 1801. I actually have a Bastiat T-shirt. Economics is often called the "Dismal Science" but this became less so with Bastiat often injecting humor into it. Robert Heilbroner writes in his "Worldly Philosophers": "There was...a man who has been almost forgotten in the march of economic ideas. He is Frederic Bastiat, an eccentric Frenchman, who lived from 1801 to 1850, and who in that short space of time and an even shorter space of literary life—six years—brought to bear on economics that most devastating of all weapons: ridicule...Bastiat had a gift for pointing out absurdities; his little book Economic Sophisms is as close to humor as economics has ever come." For instance, in his Candlemakers’ Petition he wrote of candlemakers petitioning the Government to help them combat their enemy the sun, as sunlight was hurting their business.

He was also one of the earliest opponents of Socialism.

Bastiat- The Broken Window Fallacy

TOP 20 Frédéric Bastiat Quotes

See also The History & Mystery of Money & Economics-250 Books on DVDrom

See my Economics blog at http://fredericbastiat1850.blogspot.com/

Download The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner  

Revolutionary Che Guevara on This Day in History

Joe Rogan on Che Guevara T-Shirts "He's a Mass Murderer"

This Day in History: Revolutionary Che Guevara was born on this date in 1928. I know that it's trendy to wear Che apparel...but you probably shouldn't. Che Guevara helped establish the first Cuban concentration camp, where he housed people he didn't like: Gays, Jehovah's Witnesses and anyone else that didn't match up to his Socialist Ideal Man. He was a mass murderer that enjoyed torturing animals, and he was a white supremacist who maintained that Africans held their racial purity because they wouldn't bathe. He also described Mexicans as “a band of illiterate Indians.” But none of that matters as Che's likeness has been known as "the face that launched a thousand T-shirts." And there is a certain irony in BUYING a Che shirt, because in doing so you are engaging in the very economic system he sought to overthrow. Jay-Z has been seen wearing Che shirts with BLING (again, a contradiction of the anti-capitalism Che stood for). Even Prince Harry has been seen wearing a Che shirt, but then in the past he has also been seen wearing Nazi outfits so at least he's consistent. Converse used the image of Che Guevara in one of their shoe ad campaigns. In Peru you can BUY "El Che" cigarettes. In France you can BUY "El Ché-Cola." Taco Bell, Leica and many others have used his image. It's delicious that he is being exploited by the Capitalist system he hated.

"Let’s say that all you knew about Adolf Hitler was that he painted scenic pictures, postcards, and houses in Vienna, loved dogs and named his adorable German Shepard 'Blondie,' and frequently expressed solidarity with 'the people.' You might sport a T-shirt adorned with his image if you thought such a charismatic chap was also good-looking in a beret. But your education would be widely regarded as incomplete." Lawrence W Reed

Removing Statues of Violent Bigots? Start with Che
https://fee.org/articles/removing-statues-of-violent-bigots-start-with-che/