MISS LIBERTEA

How far we have fallen from the days when the American people cared about freedom and liberty, and when other countries, like France, saw us as the beacon of liberty. Sure, we still have some of our freedoms, and yes, many more freedoms than other countries, but they are chipped away on the daily. Not only are our liberties being chipped way, but a staggering amount of people, over 50% of the population, are clamoring for it. We have citizens who would rather be coddled, treated like children, and be given things from the government than pull themselves up from their bootstraps. For those who work hard, and refuse to follow the crowd, there are so many opportunities to be had. Those opportunities to create a life of freedom and new beginnings are what the Statue of Liberty truly represents. Unfortunately, the US government attempts to discourage entrepreneurship and individualism daily by the laws they pass that make it so much more difficult for the common man. Many of us assume that the US is economically free, but in reality, the we only rank 20th in the world for economic freedom. We actually no longer even fall in the “Free” category, but instead the “Mostly Free”.

What has caused us to drop in rank from free to mostly free? There are many things that can be attributed to this loss of economic freedom. Some of the easiest to spot are the size of government and its excessive spending. What happens when the government grows and starts spending all the money, and then borrowing even more? Someone’s gotta pay for it, and ultimately us or our children. Of course, the government’s solution to this problem is to print more money through quantitative easing. This in turn causes price inflation. With price inflation, money doesn’t go as far as it used to, meaning we have to make more to afford the things we used to be able to purchase. This tends to hurt small businesses, who don’t have the room or ability to keep their prices competitive as much as larger businesses, and really hurts the retired, as the money they worked so hard to save their whole lives doesn’t last as long as they planned. Price inflation has grown drastically over the past two years due to helicopter money going to everyone and their brother, because, Corone. Another loss of economic freedom is the loss of protection of private property rights. Eminent domain and others things like a moratorium on evictions of private property are big and obvious examples, the latter also because, Corone. Lastly, we have things like increased taxes, bailouts, and crony capitalism that interfere in what is supposed to be a free market.

With the Statue of Liberty in our own country, we should never have to wonder which country has the most liberty. It seems that the people have gotten too complacent, but also lack the knowledge of how economic success occurs. The freer market the USA had in the past, led to the the wealth we see today. Unfortunately, many believe that socialism will increase that wealth.  Instead, with a socialistic system, we see a burden on the system that was created by free market capitalism. It will only bring us on a path downwards. We may see ourselves as rich, able to print as much money as we want with no consequences, but at some point this house of cards will fall and the bill will come due. There will be no way to ever right the ship and it will make for some very hard times.