Imagine if oil companies got together and agreed to charge consumers no less than $3.50 per gallon for gas. Let’s call it a “global minimum price.” How long—in minutes—do you think it would take for the news media to cry foul and for the Justice Department to file an antitrust suit?
In recent days, President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen endorsed the identical concept—so long as the perpetrators are governments.
Yes, unbelievable as it may be to small children, governments and double standards go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Biden and Yellen are leading the charge for a “global minimum tax” on businesses. They want to get governments all over the world to agree to charge companies no less than 15 percent for the State’s wisdom and beneficence. No more of this competition stuff that might encourage firms to move to, say, Ireland where the government only charges them 12.5 percent! “That’s not fair!” cry the anti-competition “progressives” like Biden and Yellen.
If private firms connived to fix a minimum price for their goods, they would be branded “robber barons” and their CEOs would be vilified before congressional committees. Do not expect Biden, Yellen and the government price-fixers who endorse a global minimum tax to ever face so much as a tough question at a press conference.
To date, major media has not only been silent on this glaring hypocrisy, but it has also cheered on the price-fixers—which reminds me of something Adlai Stevenson said more than half a century ago: “The job of the journalist is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and then print the chaff.”
Poor old John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil! He still catches Hell from armchair historians who claim he colluded with competitors to fix minimum prices for oil products, even though the evidence is scant at best. Unlike governments, Standard charged less and less for products that steadily improved in quality. (See my essay, “Witch-Hunting for Robber Barons: The Standard Oil Story”).
In a May 27 editorial, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that Ireland is a superb example of the wisdom of tax competition between countries. For decades now, the previously over-taxed Emerald Isle has kept its flat-rate business income tax rate at 12.5 percent:
Ireland has reaped the benefits. Between 1986 and 2006, the economy grew to nearly 140% of the EU average from a mere two-thirds. Employment nearly doubled to two million, and the brain drain of the 1970s and 1980s reversed. Ireland became a destination for global capital.
If Ireland were to sign on to the Biden/Yellen global minimum tax proposal, it would have to impose a 20% tax hike. Its finance minister is no idiot. He’s against it.
So the next time your teacher or professor says that getting together with your competitors to fix minimum prices and reduce competition makes you an evil robber baron, raise your hand and ask, “You mean like Joe Biden and Janet Yellen?”
Article by Lawrence W. Reed from FEE.
‘The Purge’ by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us
Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.
For the last few months, NOQ Report, Conservative Playbook, and the American Conservative Movement have appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.
It wasn’t just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from “woke” Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. Both of our YouTube accounts were banned. Facebook “fact-checks” everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Medium canceled us. Apple canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss “taboo” topics.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can’t say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancellation, but we’d rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media’s lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they’ve convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.
The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an “anti-vaxxer” in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects, including death. One of our stories about the Johnson & Johnson “vaccine” causing blood clots was “fact-checked” and removed one day before the government hit the brakes on it. These questions and news items are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting canceled.
There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ, CP, and ACM readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are pacing to be short by about $3700 per month in order to maintain operations.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. We had 5,657,724 sessions on our website from November, 2020, through February, 2021. Our intention is to elevate that to higher levels this year by focusing on a strategy that relies on free speech rather than being beholden to progressive Big Tech companies.
During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we’d like to be completely free from them. That doesn’t mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.
We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.
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