Money is NOT wealth. Many things that increase wealth can be bought with money. Even the wealth of options that are available to somebody with lots of money can be highly valued in and of itself, but even then, it is the opportunity, not the money, that is valued. Wealth is time spent doing things you enjoy with people you love, like surfing, or walking, or simply talking. But money can buy many tools that make these actions easier to do, or more enjoyable while doing them.

I recently declared that ‘My preference is to avoid a government driven economy even if it were to lead to greater overall wealth, which I still do not believe is accurate.’ This was in response to a James Galbraith interview by Ezra Klein stating that there is nothing to fear from large government deficits. (to those who may find the argument convincing, I’d like to point to the role inflation plays in Galbraith’s analysis)

If the government were to decide that X is better for the wealth of the country than Y, but X is worse for your wealth, then the amount of money taken from you to accomplish X should be minimized to afford you the option of securing Y for yourself. (that’s very poorly written, I’ll have to revise it later, but that’s how my brain is working right now.)

Wealth is good, but only insofar is it is created by Freedom and Law. Freedom is the good, wealth is the result, hard work and vision under law is the means.

I call Freedom the good because life is not just a finite series of events during which one enjoys either luxury or a lack thereof. Life is not even a roller coaster of hills and turns that you have no control over. Life is a jungle of challenges and opportunities that can pop up and disappear in the blink of an eye. The choices you make affect your life and the lives all around you.

Money plays a key role in this because money provides access to an array of opportunities that are not afforded to less endowed individuals. More importantly, money tends to flow to those who provide value to others while it flows away from those who detract from that value. Government distorts that flow though when it redirects money to flow for political purposes.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said Friday.
Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.

Reuters is reporting that Cuba is running low on toilet paper.
So, in case you didn’t catch that, the government ‘decided’ that toilet paper ‘should’ cost less because people ‘need’ it right now. Now that it costs less, people bought it, and there isn’t much left.
Lets be generous and assume that the government is being honest with its people and telling them that it will be hard to get more. That would let them plan on how to use that toilet paper sparingly enough to last.
If they had simply let the price of toilet paper float, world companies would be falling over each other trying to get more TP to the island. As it is, their red rears may be getting even redder as they resort to old school newspaper.

“On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county.” David Jones told FOX News.
“We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all,” Jones said.
A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited “unlawful use of land,” ordering them to either “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit,” the couple’s attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.

Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit

Apparently, the freedom of assembly comes second to the zoning rules of San Diego, CA. This is the same freedom of assembly that is recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations), the United States Constitution, and even the state constitution of California Article 1 Section 3 Subsection a.

This further reconfirms my prejudice that zoning boards are nothing but power hungry land grabbing bastards. Property rights are what make free societies work, eroding them erodes the base of a free society.

Warning: Not entirely family friendly, but far more family freindly than the policy.
HatTip to Jerry Holsworth for the link.