The Looting Has Been Signed Into Law With the Health Care Bill - Now Comes Gang Rule

A few decades ago a penniless, Russian immigrant made it big in America. How? By writing about her philosophy of individualism, freedom and limited government. She hit a chord among the people of her adopted country. Her ideas are more important today as Washington takes over our lives and is force feeding us statism and gang rule bit by bit.

...The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of: one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang.

...Statism-in fact and in principle-is nothing more than gang rule. A dictatorship is a gang devoted to looting the effort of the productive citizens of its own country. When a statist ruler exhausts his own country's economy, he attacks his neighbors. It is his only means of postponing internal collapse and prolonging his rule. a country that violates the rights of its own citizens, will not respect the rights of its neighbors. Those who do not recognize individual rights, will not recognize the rights of nations: a nation is only a number of individuals. ("The Roots of War" in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL by Ayn Rand (1966)

The Government Workers Paradise vs The Private Sector Hell

Ayn Rand had some wise insights into statism versus freedom. For example this gem:

"The degree of statism in a country's political system, is the degree to which it breaks up the country into rival gangs and sets men against one another. When individual rights are abrogated, there is no way to determine who is entitled to what; there is no way to determine the justice of anyone's claims, desires, or interests. The criterion, therefore, reverts to the tribal concept of : one's wishes are limited only by the power of one's gang."

It turns out there really is growing inequality in America. It's the 45% premium in pay and benefits that government workers receive over the poor saps who create wealth in the private economy.

And the gap is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), from 1998 to 2008 public employee compensation grew by 28.6%, compared with 19.3% for private workers. In the recession year of 2009, with almost no inflation and record budget deficits, more than half the states awarded pay raises to their employees. Even as deficits in state capitals widen and are forcing cuts in services, few politicians are willing to eliminate these pay inequities that enrich the few who wield political power.

Let's walk through the math. In 2008 almost half of all state and local government expenditures, or an estimated $1.1 trillion, went toward the pay and benefits of public workers. According to the BLS, in 2009 the average state or local public employee received $39.66 in total compensation per hour versus $27.42 for private workers. This means that for every $1 in pay and benefits a private employee earned, a state or local government worker received $1.45.

The BLS study breaks down where that 45% premium comes from. It turns out that public employees earn salaries that are about one-third higher on average than what is provided to private workers per hour worked. But the real windfall for government workers is in benefits. Those are 70% higher than what standard private employers offer...Read at WSJ "The Government Pay Boom".

The French Abandon The Green Thing - America should Too

Even that most socialist of countries - France, has backed away from the deceitful tax called cap-and trade. Why? Because Sarkozy and ilk were afraid that it would make France uncompetitive. America - listen up- even the french are doing it - abandoning the green thing that is.

Environmental Regulations: While U.S. politicians try to keep the idea alive here, the French have announced cancellation of their version of cap-and-trade. They say it will hurt their competitiveness. Vive la France.

Moments of crisis concentrate the mind wonderfully, or at least they should. In France, as public-sector workers mount a nationwide strike and fallout continues from the ruling party's heavy defeat in regional elections, Prime Minister Francois Fillon has indicated that his government will abandon plans to introduce a domestic carbon tax.

"We have to amplify measures that help reinforce the competitiveness of our economy," Fillon told the Reuters news agency. But what about all those green jobs? What about saving planet Earth from imminent planetary doom? Sacre bleu!

France would have been the largest country to impose a carbon tax as part of its efforts to tackle alleged man-induced climate change. It still hopes for an EU-wide tax, which would hamper everybody's economy. Unlike here, France prefers not to lead by example, hoping others will follow.

When the new tax was first approved by parliament last year, President Nicolas Sarkozy hailed it as a vital weapon against global warming. But it was struck down by France's highest court just 48 hours before it was due to come into effect. Read at Investors.com

How Small America Has Become - The End of Greatness

America has taken another giant step away from greatness and toward becoming another insignificant welfare state. Socialist Washington will take from Peter to pay Paul. We will no long be the country of the "free and the brave" but be beggars at the feeding trough of Washington D.C. That's what Obama/Pelosi/Reid wanted-that's what they'll get. Their dream of a downtrodden, shoddy nation is within their grasps. It is up to us the defenders of freedom to bring America back to greatness.

Sunday's vote exposed the ugly truth that ObamaCare is not really about health care at all. It's all about who pays for it and who controls it — in effect a massive wealth-redistribution scheme.

Those who believe this will lead to some medical nirvana will likely be disappointed. Fact is, this poorly designed monstrosity will lead to lower-quality care, higher costs, fewer practicing physicians, higher taxes and fewer jobs.

We've done more than 150 editorials in the past year or so documenting these problems. Democrats surely understand them. Yet, despite a recent CNN poll showing that 59% of Americans oppose ObamaCare, Congress approved it anyway.

Why? Because it's not really about health care. It's the largest wealth grab in American history, masquerading as health care "reform," another step in the socialization of Americans' income in the name of "fairness" and "spread(ing) the wealth around," as Obama himself has put it.

That's why we call the program a lie.
"Enacting a Lie"
The idea behind all this, simply put, is control. This is a vast expansion of government that will require as much as $3 trillion in added spending over a decade. All claims of deficit neutrality are a joke.

This is socialization through the tax code. That $3 trillion has to be paid for. As we showed last week, the health care bill levies $569.2 billion in new taxes over the next 10 years alone.

At the same time, as noted by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, it will increase U.S. budget deficits by $562 billion.

Who'll pay all these taxes? Those deemed "rich" by Democrats, and businesses... Read the rest of this article at Investors.com

What If Atlas Did Shrug - Nancy Pelosi?

How would Pelosi get all the cash that she has planned to gouge us for if Atlas shrugged? Remember the famous novel by Ayn Rand where she depicts an America run amok by big government? The industrialists, inventors, businessmen and philosophers go on strike and refuse to work for the benefit of statists. Well America is there. This immoral behemoth of a health care bill will finally put the socialist nail in the coffin of American productivity.

Prime Minister Netanyah Confronts Obama's Hostility Towards Israel

"Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?"

For everyone including Jews who voted for Obama this article by Caroline Glick should convince you that Mr. Obama is anti-freedom and for everything that smells of statism. Obama's staged rage against Israel is nothing short of astonishing. Every president and the American People have been pro-Israel - In comes Obama and he now shows all the faces of a man bent on destroying this tiny prosperous country. Why? Because he wants to cow-tow to the likes of Ahmadinejad of Iran and Syria and Turkey and....all the bad guys. It's a sad day for freedom ever since we elected this man out of left field. Read the following article by Caroline Glick who analyzes the Middle East.

Why has US President Barak Obama decided to foment a crisis in US relations with Israel?

Some commentators have claimed that it is Israel's fault. As they tell it, the news that Israel has not banned Jewish construction in Jerusalem — after repeatedly refusing to ban such construction — drove Obama into a fit of uncontrolled rage from which he has yet to recover.

While popular, this claim makes no sense. Obama didn't come to be called "No drama Obama" for nothing. It is not credible to argue that Jerusalem's local planning board's decision to approve the construction of 1,600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo drove cool Obama into a fit of wild rage at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Obama himself claims that he has launched a political war against Israel in the interest of promoting peace. But this claim too, does not stand up to scrutiny.
On Friday Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum.

First, Israel must cancel the approval of the housing units in Ramat Shlomo.
Second, Israel must prohibit all construction for Jews in Jerusalem neighborhoods built since 1967.

Third, Israel must make a gesture to the Palestinians to show them we want peace. The US suggests releasing hundreds of Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons.

Fourth, Israel must agree to negotiate all substantive issues, including the partition of Jerusalem, (including the Jewish neighborhoods constructed since 1967 that are now home to more than a half million Israelis), and the immigration of millions of hostile foreign Arabs to Israel under the rubric of the so-called "right of return," in the course of indirect, Obama administration-mediated negotiations with the Palestinians. To date, Israel has maintained that substantive discussions can only be conducted in direct negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian officials... Read "Why Obama is Waging War Against Israel" at Jewish World Review. Also read "Biden's Lost Cause" by Caroline Glick. This article also shows how the United States under Obama is undermining Israel and it's interests.

Doctors Refuse To Be Slaves Of The State - We Should Back Them - Or We Will Become Slaves Also

It is generally understood that an American will not bow over or kiss anyone's hand of (except Obama). Well doctors appear to be weighing in and they say no to being slaves of the state. Hurray for them.

...Our questionnaire went out Aug. 28 to some 25,600 doctors nationwide. Of that substantial sample, we got 1,476 responses. One hundred of those were retired, leaving 1,376.

At the time, virtually no one had stopped to ask doctors how they felt about the medical takeover being discussed in Congress. We thought it was vital to ask them, since any overhaul would rise or fall on its implementation by doctors themselves.

To say we were stunned with the results is an understatement.

Of the physicians queried, 45% said they'd consider closing their practice or retiring early if the overhaul then being considered were enacted. Also, 65% said they opposed the government's attempts at taking over the health care system. Just 33% supported it.

Given that the White House and Congress both promised then — as they do now — to provide health care coverage for 31 million new patients while at the same time cutting costs from the $2.4 trillion a year we spend on medical care, we thought it was important to reveal that doctors wouldn't go along with it.

What we found was that of the 800,000 physicians practicing in the U.S. in 2006, as many as 360,000 might leave the profession. So with the proposed overhaul, we'd be trying to cover 31 million more patients with up to 45% fewer doctors.

Impossible. It can't be done.

What came after the Sept. 16 article in which we detailed our poll results was bizarre and in some ways disheartening. A number of liberal groups attacked us for telling the truth, hinting that we were lying, part of an ideological conspiracy or just incompetent...(Read at IBD "...Doctors Could Hang It Up")

Urgent: It's The Eleventh Hour and You must Write To your Senators and your Representative

TIME TO WRITE YOUR TWO SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE AND STATE LOUD AND CLEAR YOU ARE AGAINST ENSLAVING OUR DOCTORS AND TAKING OVER ONE-SIXTH OF ECONOMY. DO YOU WANT A POLITICIAN TELLING YOU WHAT HEALTH CARE YOU CAN HAVE OR NOT HAVE? WRITE...

Click here for writing to your senators and rep.

"Our enemies get courted; our friends get the squeeze. It has happened to Poland, the Czech Republic, Honduras and Colombia. Now it's Israel's turn"

The hypocrisy of this administration is beyond comprehension. Obama and his minions have been dissing our friends and cozying-up to the bad guys. What is one to think about this? What? Please tell me? Treason? A desire to destroy America as we know it? Explain this to me. All I see is danger-danger for our country, danger for our principles, danger for our freedoms.

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has endorsed "healthy relations" between Iran and Syria, mildly rebuked Syrian President Bashar Assad for accusing the U.S. of "colonialism," and publicly apologized to Moammar Gadhafi for treating him with less than appropriate deference after the Libyan called for "a jihad" against Switzerland.

When it comes to Israel, however, the Administration has no trouble rising to a high pitch of public indignation. On a visit to Israel last week, Vice President Joe Biden condemned an announcement by a mid-level Israeli official that the government had approved a planning stage—the fourth out of seven required—for the construction of 1,600 housing units in north Jerusalem. Assuming final approval, no ground will be broken on the project for at least three years.

But neither that nor repeated apologies from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—at what White House sources ostentatiously said was the personal direction of President Obama—from calling the announcement "an insult to the United States." White House political chief David Axelrod got in his licks on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday, lambasting Israel for what he described as "an affront." READ at WSJ, "Obama Turns Against Israel".

"It is Fair to Assess That No Wind Energy---Would Exist if it had to Compete on Market Terms"

Why is the Obama administration covering up all sorts of data? Chalk up another scandal for the Obama Administration. Spain is telling us that wind power DOES NOT create jobs it robs jobs. They are being honest and warning us! Are we listening? this administration's overreach into areas where government should not be directly contravenes our Constitution. But the more wider problem is with us. We must learn our history and become convinced of the uniqueness of this nation. There has been nothing....nothing like America in the long and troubled history of humanity. This oasis of freedom has chugged along for some 200 years but it needs to be refreshed, sustained and fought for at every step.

Scandal: Spain exposed the boondoggle of wind power in 2009, discrediting an idea touted by the Obama administration. In response, U.S. officials banded with trade lobbyists to hide the facts.

It was a cold day at the Energy Department when researchers at King Juan Carlos University in Spain released a study showing that every "green job" created by the wind industry killed off 4.27 other jobs elsewhere in the Spanish economy.

Research director Gabriel Calzada Alvarez didn't object to wind power itself, but found that when a government artificially props up this industry with subsidies, higher electrical costs (31%), tax hikes (5%) and government debt follow. Fact is, these subsidies have the same "Cuisinart" effect on jobs as wind-generating propeller blades have on birds. Every green job costs $800,000 to create and 90% of them are temporary, he found.

Alvarez made no bones about the lessons of Spain for the Obama administration, which has big plans for "green jobs." His report warned of "considerable employment consequences" from "self-inflicted economic wounds." It forecast that the U.S. could lose 6.6 million jobs if it followed Spain, and it "should certainly expect its results to follow such a tendency."

A few months later, Danish researchers at the Center for Politiske Studier came to the same conclusion about subsidized wind power from their own country's experience.
"It is fair to assess that no wind energy to speak of would exist if it had to compete on market terms," their report said.

Straightforward experience, facts and the logical conclusions about policy failure in Europe should be de rigueur in science, and the reports coming from nations with long experience in wind power ought to be taken seriously.

But they had no place in the Obama administration, which had declared a "green jobs" agenda with $2.3 billion in tax credits to create 17,000 "high-quality green jobs."...
(READ "The Big Wind-Power Cover-Up" at IBD

Do You Want The French Health Care System? Watch Out What You Ask For...

There are a number of government run health care systems out there in the world. All you have to do is look at them and you'll see where we're headed-to bad health care.

Health Systems: Health care in France is often held up as a model the U.S. might follow. Yet the French have their own problems that show there's no such thing as a free lunch — or a free doctor's visit.

Call it the grass-is-greener syndrome. Advocates of national health care, acknowledging the flaws in ObamaCare yet despising the current U.S. system that has the best medicines, the best medical equipment and the shortest waiting lists, have turned their eyes lovingly to places like France.

As City Journal contributing editor Guy Sorman notes, the French would also love to have the low-cost, high-service system some Americans gush about. Unfortunately, they don't. France's system isn't that cheap and is financed by high taxes on labor that have heavy economic consequences.

Sorman notes that a Frenchman making a monthly salary of 3,000 euros has 350 of them deducted for health insurance. Then the employer throws in an additional 1,200 euros. This raises the cost of labor to prohibitive levels and puts a brake on economic growth. This helps explain why French unemployment hovers around 10%.

France imposes an additional tax levy to cover the constant deficits that national health insurance runs.

The French Parliament raises this levy, which applies to all forms of income, every year. Altogether, Sorman writes, "25% of French national income goes toward what's called Social Security, which includes health care and basic retirement pensions for all."

Drugs developed in America at enormous expense do cost less in France, which decides what drugs are to be used and at what prices. American patients in effect subsidize the French, who take the same pills at half the price because American pharmaceutical companies don't want to lose the French market...Read "Vive Le French Care?" at IBD.

The Terminator's Disastrous Green Jobs Policy-Are You That Surprised?

Surprised? The Governor Terminator stated several years ago that Green jobs would be good for California. Think again. It's been a disaster. Read "California Greenin" at Investors.com.

Global Warming: Remember the promise that green jobs would flourish in California? Well, here's the reality: The cost of going green is actually lost jobs.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Californians were told that their state would become a font of green jobs churned out by the growing green economy.

The law, a kind of mini-Kyoto Accord that requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, was supposed to create 120,000 new jobs by 2020, according to a state Air Resources Board estimate.

...looked just at green jobs, the state's independent Legislative Analyst's Office looked at what the Global Warming Solutions Act will actually do to the overall economy. The picture is not rosy.

"It seems most likely to us that implementation of (the global warming legislation) will result in the near term in California job losses, even after recognizing that many of the programs phase in over time," wrote legislative analyst Mac Taylor...

...But the reasons for the job losses — higher energy prices, changes in the types of energy used, vehicle fuel standards, business contractions and relocations, regulatory compliance — aren't likely to change. This strongly suggests that job losses will go on beyond the near term.

At one time, California was known for its overflow of original ideas that helped move the country forward. Sacramento's global warming bill, however, is a mistake the rest of the states, as well as Washington, should learn from.

Obama's National Job Approval - Not Good

The Leftist Gang of South America and the Death by Starvation of Cuban Orlando Zapata Tamayo

The first part of this video with Mary Anatasia O'Grady shows exactly what kind of leaders we have today. The face of perfidy of the moment is Felipe Calderon, Mexico's President. Mexico recently hosted the Rio Summit where Castro was invited. Felipe Calderon although right of center, cozied up to the Castro Brothers, (you know, the ones that have murdered thousands of Cuban dissidents in the past 50 years) in order to be included in lucrative oil development contracts off the shores of Cuba. Guess who was not invited to the party? The President of Honduras, Porfirio Lobo. Why-because Honduras had ousted a leftist president last year.

The second part of O'Grady's report concerns our old friends the Castro brothers in that island prison called Cuba. A brave man, Orlando Zapata Tamayo died last week after 86 days in prison for daring to complain about the communist regime. He started a hunger strike and as he lay dying in his jail cell the Cuban thugs brought in an air conditioner to hurry up his death. Where is the Obama administration's outrage? All I've seen is the usual mealy mouthed utterances by our Secretary of State. WHEN WILL CUBA BE LIBERATED? The mighty United States has lived by this squeaky mouse for over 50 years and watched as it has murdered thousands of dissidents. Does America stand for freedom anymore? Will she ever speak out against injustice again? How little it would take to get rid of the Cuban thug regime! How much suffering has been dealt to a people for so long!

Parents-It's Time to Get Rid of Our Lousy State Run Schools

As a parent, the most important thing we can do to improve things in America is to get rid of state run schools - the Public schools. These are cesspools of corruption and violence where our kids are getting a lousy or no education at all. If poor countries can establish good private schools for reasonable fees then so can we. Watch this video and take heart that we can get rid of this abomination we call Public education. Watch John Stossel' interview a man who says it can be done - and it's being done in places like Ghana. Parents will take their kid out of public schools and pay 1 dollar a week for him to attend private schools. America it's time to get rid of state run schools.

"Socialism is Sacrificing the Individual to the Whole" Goebbels

There are lessons to be learned from history and sadly we don't have to go back too far to find what the results of government control of the economy are. We have the Soviet Union under the communists. We have China under the communists. We have Germany under the Nazis. Remember, communism and fascism (Nazis) are just two sides of the same coin. Under Communism the public owns the means of production so there is no private property. Under fascism the government allows you to pretend that you own your property but they "hold total power over its use and disposal". Currently, we are headed towards fascism. Ayn Rand explained: "The Fascist New Frontier" pamphlet, 5.

During the Hitler years-in order to finance the party's programs, including the war expenditures-every social group in Germany was mercilessly exploited and drained. White-collar salaries and the earnings of small businessmen were deliberately held down by government controls, freezes, taxes. Big business was bled by taxes and "special contributions" of every kind, and strangled by the bureaucracy....At the same time the income of the farmers was held down, and there was a desperate flight to the cities-where the middle class, especially the small tradesmen, were soon in desperate straits, and where the workers were forced to labor at low wages for increasingly longer hours (up to 60 or more per week).

But the Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. "Socialism" for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism-in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.

"To be a socialist," says Goebbels, "is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole."

By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals. (The Ominous Parallels by Leonard Peikoff 1982).

Wonderful Video of Our Orbiting Astronauts Speaking to Wall Street Journal

Sometimes a human being needs fuel to inspire one's life amidst the pomposity of our craven politicians.

Fighting the Good Fight - Against Tyranny in All It's Forms

"Look at Europe...Can't you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass - as God. No motive and no virtue permitted-except that of service to the proletariat. That's one version (communism). Here's another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race-as God. No motive and no virtue permitted - except that of service to the race (fascism). Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer movement. If you're sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We've closed the doors. We've fixed the coin. Heads-collectivism, and tails-collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your should to a council-or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique....Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. ("The Soul of a Collectivist" in For The New Intellectual by Ayn Rand).

Also listen to Lord Monckton on PJTV demolish Al Gore's "global warming' scam. What does this have to do with the above quote from Ayn Rand. Control. Control of us the little people. Between the demolished Global Warming scam and Obama's turning of America to the left we must be vigilant and brave as we struggle as a nation to retain our heritage of liberty and small government. Tyranny has to be fought from all the sides that it is being imposed on us.

Washington Spends Like a Drunken Sailor - Except That The Sailor Spends His Own Money!

Maybe this is a good idea! An amendment to the Constitution to limit spending by our drunken sailors in Washington. I say it's an idea that is worth looking into.

...In what promises to be a consequential election year, Republican leaders are eager to get the masses who make up the Tea Party movement on their side. But Tea Partyers remember that the GOP Congress and GOP president themselves spent way too much — even expanding the fiscally doomed Medicare entitlement program. Some Tea Party leaders even accuse Republican spendthrifts of practicing socialism.

GOP Reps. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana and John Campbell of California may have just hit on a way of focusing the energy of a movement that's been accused by Democrats such as former Senate aide and Forbes columnist Dan Gerstein of being "incoherent, indiscriminate" and "all over the place" in its complaints.

The three have proposed a Spending Limit Amendment to the Constitution that would restrain the federal government to the average expenditures of the post-World War II era — 20% of the U.S. economy. It would take a declaration of war or a two-thirds vote by Congress to waive the spending constraints.

Tea Partyers will no doubt be impressed by the fact that the idea comes from no less than Thomas Jefferson. In 1798, the Declaration's author wrote: "I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government."

There really is no credible argument against the idea. In common-sense fashion, the constraint would be suspended during a declared war, and any other real emergency would surely be recognized as such by two-thirds of lawmakers...Read "Tea Party Amendment" at IBD.

Chile's Freedom and Small Government Promotes Life vs Haiti's Big Government Promotes Death

America is at a crossroads. We can either continue with Obama style Big Government with his insistence on spending the United States into oblivion and controlling more and more of our lives or we can go the way of small government, limited government and government that is not a hindrance to the individual's life and stays within its bounds as proscribed by our Constitution.

How Milton Friedman Saved Chile

Milton Friedman has been dead for more than three years. But his spirit was surely hovering protectively over Chile in the early morning hours of Saturday. Thanks largely to him, the country has endured a tragedy that elsewhere would have been an apocalypse.

...By contrast, Saturday's earthquake in Chile measured 8.8. That's nearly 500 times more powerful than Haiti's, or about one million Hiroshimas. Yet Chile's reported death toll—711 as of this writing—was a tiny fraction of the 230,000 believed to have perished in Haiti.

It's not by chance that Chileans were living in houses of brick—and Haitians in houses of straw—when the wolf arrived to try to blow them down. In 1973, the year the proto-Chavista government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, Chile was an economic shambles. Inflation topped out at an annual rate of 1000%, foreign-currency reserves were totally depleted, and per capita GDP was roughly that of Peru and well below Argentina's.

What Chile did have was intellectual capital, thanks to an exchange program between its Catholic University and the economics department of the University of Chicago, then Friedman's academic home. Even before the 1973 coup, several of Chile's "Chicago Boys" had drafted a set of policy proposals which amounted to an off-the-shelf recipe for economic liberalization: sharp reductions to government spending and the money supply; privatization of state-owned companies; the elimination of obstacles to free enterprise and foreign investment, and so on...READ the rest here at WSJ