New Zealand Conservative

'Capitalism is premised upon unlimited growth.' That idea is nothing, as compared to the fruits of socialism: BRUSSELS — For most Europeans, almost nothing is more prized than their four to six weeks of guaranteed annual vacation leave. But it was not clear just how sacrosanct that time off was until Thursday, when Europe’s highest court ruled that workers who happened to get sick on vacation were legally entitled to take another vacation. Contra Celsum discusses this from another perspective: The Worker Has Rights

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxbusiness.com">video.foxbusiness.com</a> Seen at : Fr. Sirico (about new book) interviewed by Stuart Varney – fun! ~ WDTPRS

New York Times: The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest reached unexpected early success today when the banking industry indicated they had taken on board the widespread criticism and offered to reform the financial system by next Tuesday. The reforms were seen as modest by some but were described as "a good step forwards".  Chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank offered a 10 point plan in response to the OWS protests sweeping the globe: Government bonds would be scrapped.  Investing in government was an oxymoron, as was government investing Fiat currency would be abolished and there would be a return to the gold standard The gold standard would then be abolished, and return to coins minted in the realm of USA, bearing the noble head of Caesar Obama Caesar Obama would appoint local Lords to ensure the rights of citizens were upheld. A small tithe would fund this activity The noble head of Caesar Obama would be phased out for glossy beads Glossy beads would be exchanged for...

Clint Heine advances some interesting thoughts around Capitalism in two posts which he attacks Lucia Maria, and to a lesser extent, NZC bloggers for imagined crimes ( covered here ). It's those thoughts on capitalism though that I thought worth discussing further. Clint makes these two claims about capitalism: 1. a fundamental part of capitalism is equality. 2. Capitalists believe in equality and fairness. Now capitalism means many things to many people, and this might be why the conversation gets off track, but I think I'm fairly safe if we agree the core tenets of Capitalism is that (a) it is an economic system and (b) the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. The profit goes to the business owners, and wages are paid to the workers in exchange for their labour. Clearly, at first glance you can see that Capitalists have no intrinsic reason to believe in fairness and equality. I'd suggest capitalism is more about competition, reward ...

73 AIG executives - including 11 who no longer work for the company - were each last week given bonuses worth more than $1m [with total payouts at 165 million dollars]. Problem is AIG have already received 170 billion dollars in Federal money, and are due to receive another 30 billion. Obama has sucker written all over him even as AIG vacuums up billions. So what's the spin on this? Well, instead of throwing AIG another 30 billion, they'll deduct a bit of money from that figure, and rush through some legislation to tax the bonuses at 100% or some some nonsense. So basically, AIG symbolically pay back 165 million out of 200 BILLION, and the Democrats are happy? The real nonsense is that Government money keeps the fat cats going, and we can argue all we like about how it may have been government policy that fueled this, or any number of other reasons, but the real issue is how much the State will use such events to interfere with business. It's the wrong way to "fix...

Ever wondered why Labour and National seem so much the same? Could it be that socialism and capitalism are two sides of the same coin. It certainly appears that way to me. Many National supporters expect National to save NZ when they get elected. I think they'll be disappointed. Here's Hilaire Belloc on capitalism, socialism and slavery. Just a snippet from his book that I thought worth putting up and calling attention to. If it were true that economic circumstances mainly decided the fate of society (and that is a more respectable error than the mechanical, for every human economic system or discovery or adaptation, proceeds from the mind) then we might waste our time, as so many do today, on discussing economic tendencies as determining the future of man. But it is not true that economic circumstance molds our destiny. Industrial Capitalism, for instance, did not develop of itself: it was the slow product of false religion. It arose out of the Reformation; and in particu...