"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone" -- Frederic Bastiat.

When the French were actually smart

Frédéric Bastiat:

Claude Frédéric Bastiat (30 June 1801 – 24 December 1850) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.

Thanks to Kurt Vangsness for the following two links:

THE LAW

WHAT IS SEEN AND WHAT IS NOT SEEN
This essay published in 1848 explains why Keynesian stimulus does not work."

This explains man's necessarily painful evolution. Ignorance surrounds him at his cradle; therefore, he regulates his acts according to their first consequences, the only ones that, in his infancy, he can see. It is only after a long time that he learns to take account of the others.**2 Two very different masters teach him this lesson: experience and foresight. Experience teaches efficaciously but brutally. It instructs us in all the effects of an act by making us feel them, and we cannot fail to learn eventually, from having been burned ourselves, that fire burns. I should prefer, in so far as possible, to replace this rude teacher with one more gentle: foresight. For that reason I shall investigate the consequences of several economic phenomena, contrasting those that are seen with those that are not seen.

THE LAW

Frederic Bastiat

Preface

When a reviewer wishes to give special recognition to a book, he predicts that it will still be read "a hundred years from now." The Law, first published as a pamphlet in June, 1850, is already more than a hundred years old. And because its truths are eternal, it will still be read when another century has passed.

Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before - and immediately following -- the Revolution of February 1848. This was the period when France was rapidly turning to complete socialism. As a Deputy to the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Bastiat was studying and explaining each socialist fallacy as it appeared. And he explained how socialism must inevitably degenerate into communism. But most of his countrymen chose to ignore his logic.

The Law is here presented again because the same situation exists in America today as in the France of 1848. The same socialist-communist ideas and plans that were then adopted in France are now sweeping America. The explanations and arguments then advanced against socialism by Mr. Bastiat are -- word for word -- equally valid today. His ideas deserve a serious hearing.

INSIGHT

From PatriotPost.US

"In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other." --French writer Voltaire (1694-1778)

"Forced to choose, the poor, like the rich, love money more than political liberty; and the only political freedom capable of enduring is one that is so pruned as to keep the rich from denuding the poor by ability or subtlety and the poor from robbing the rich by violence or votes." --American psychologist and philosopher Will Durant (1885-1981)

"By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others." --French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"Did you ever know a politician that was not 'facing the most critical time in the world's affairs' every time he spoke in public?" --humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

The real truth about the economy

Despite claims to the contrary, governments and their employees cannot force economies to grow by growing themselves. They are unable to create wealth. Instead, they seize wealth through taxes, depriving the private sector of the capital needed for growth, and regulate commerce often to the point of obstructing progress.

Everyone should read THIS ARTICLE!