Quote of the Day
The average American today lives better than John D. Rockefeller did in 1926. That is not an exaggeration. It is a fact.
Rockefeller could not fly across the country in five hours. You can for $200. He could not video call his family from another continent. You do it for free. He had no antibiotics, no MRI, no air conditioning in July. He could not carry every book ever written in his pocket. You are reading this on a device that does all of that and more.
Americans throw away 30-40% of their food. Not because they are wasteful, but because food is so abundant that waste is affordable. Your car has climate control, navigation, and safety systems that did not exist at any price a century ago. Your home has heating, cooling, refrigeration, and entertainment that emperors could not have imagined.
None of this was voted into existence. None of it was redistributed from the rich. It was created by free minds operating in what remains of a free market. Every comfort you enjoy today is the product of a man who thought, invented, produced, and traded voluntarily.
This is what the remnants of capitalism still deliver, even while it is being dismantled. Imagine what a fully free society could build.
The Rational Animal 🤔 @theobjectivist
Posted on X, April 3, 2026
I have nothing to add.
We live better than J.P. Morgan 100 years ago. Calvin Coolidge’s son died of an infected blister on his foot that could be cured today with hardly a thought for how deadly it could be. I have read of comparisons of western lives today with those of the Pharaohs’ in the time of the Pyramids. Compared to him, the lowest among us live as gods.
Indeed, what could we accomplish without the metaphorical buckets on our feet and heads of regulations intended only to provide inspection jobs for those incapable of imagining improvements on their own.
Just as East Asian mothers tell their children, “We are Asians, not Bsians”,
the last two centuries tell us we are Americans, not American’ts.
And yet, in spite of all that, the average couple has a very hard time being able to afford a house and kids. The luxuries are cheap, the basics are expensive.
Certainly, but the key question is why this is so. Go back to “fully free” and “remnants of capitalism”.
Good comments all!
As Windy and Rolf say. Just imagine what we could do. Or what could be done without the parasitic megalomaniacs trying to monopolize everything.
Or the moronic ignorance of the “bought and paid for results” of the science community.
The thing we really need to bring home is that most all these improvement were accomplished in spite of the rich and powerful’s control.
These days they have such a lock on everything, We have seen very little if any improvement in a long time.
Sure, we got every book in the world at our fingertips. But the incentive and desire to know what’s in them has been destroyed.
Fred Reed talked about the opportunity of being a poor minority in Baltimore.
He pointed out that you could take a short bus ride everyday into the greatest libraries and museums in this country.
What is before us will be impossible without the desire and will to know and build.
Good news though! There is a “spirit of truth” that has been bestowed on all that would seek it out,
Direct from the guy that invented and made the future possible.
Through his son Jesus Christ, whom we celebrate his raising from the grave this day.
Happy Easter all! He is risen!
“All things are possible to him that believe.”
“Knock and the door shall open, seek and you will find.”