Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #900
11/17/2023, 11/18/2023, 11/19/2023
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1) Maybe America Won the Vietnam War After All
There’s a famous scene in the movie A Fish Called Wanda (back at a time not so long ago when Hollywood was actually capable of making funny movies) when the Brit John Cleese says to the ugly American Kevin Klein: “You lost Vietnam.” And Klein angrily stammers: “Oh no, we did not lose in Vietnam. Vietnam was a tie.”
Well, maybe as we look at things fifty years later, we actually ended up WINNING that war after all. A forthcoming book by Rainer Zeitelmann called “How Nations Escape Poverty,” examined which nations have had the most per capita economic growth over the last several decades. You’re not going to believe the two countries at the top of this surprising list:
Vietnam and Poland.
What do those two countries have in common? They threw away the shackles of communism and moved aggressively in a cold turkey fashion to free-market capitalism. These two countries climbed up the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom faster than nearly any other countries. Now Vietnam is becoming the jewel of Southeast Asia and Poland one of the success stories of post-Cold War Eastern Europe.
Amazing, in roughly the last 40 years, the per capita real GDP in Vietnam has roughly quadrupled. In recent years Vietnam has continued to experience China-levels of growth. It’s all due to freedom and capitalism and no one in the streets of Saigon is marching for a return to socialism/communism.
Alas, the fawning for socialism these days only happens in rich countries.
2) Congrats to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson – It’s Only Taken Him Six Months To Make Things Worse
We wouldn’t have thought that any Chicago mayor could actually make the streets of the Windy City even more dangerous than they were under the reign of incompetency of Lori Lightfoot. But now Chicagoans might be wishing for her return.
Lightfoot was chased out of office by Marxist Che Guevara — er, Brandon Johnson, actually — and already crime is up 25% in less than a year. It was already at record levels. Johnson doesn’t like prosecuting thieves and burglars and drive-by shooters because their actions are a result of income inequality and racism – or something like that.
In 2021 Joe Biden said of sensible election reforms in Georgia: "This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end."
"There is nothing ‘Jim Crow’ about requiring a photo or state-issued ID to vote by absentee ballot – every Georgia voter must already do so when voting in-person," Governor Brian Kemp fired back.
Nonetheless, the baseball commissioner disgracefully moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver because "Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box." They caved to Black Lives Matter hysteria.
In 2022, under the new rules - which cleaned up voter roles, reduced fraud at ballot drop boxes, and other common sense anti-fraud measures - Georgia had a record-high turnout.
And now Major League Baseball is bringing the 2025 All-Star Game to... Atlanta:
Maybe next time the Democrats whip up a fake controversy, corporate America will be a little slower to jump on board. We would hate to see them end up like Bud Light.
4) Nearly Half of Los Angeles-Area EV Chargers Don't Work
More evidence that government subsidizing an industry almost never works:
The reporter’s proposed solution is almost comical: $5 billion in subsidies from federal taxpayers on top of the billions already spent to subsidize EVs. Somehow, market incentives were enough for working gas stations to be built more or less everywhere – no subsidies needed. And they didn’t run out of gas.
5) How Predictable Was This Study? Climate Change Causes Pandemics
This headline from our friends at the Daily Caller:
The government report in question, known as the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA 5), warns of a climate change/pandemic linkage:
“Climate-driven changes in ecosystems increase the risk of emerging infectious diseases by altering interactions among humans, pathogens and animals.”
Here’s another scary warning: “Changes in climate alter the distribution, diversity and abundance of vectors and non-human hosts, as well as the host’s susceptibility to pathogen replication.”
So what can stop the catastrophic effects of this sinister climate change-Covid chain reaction? You guessed it: bigger and more intrusive government:
“COVID-19 and climate change have common underlying challenges and solutions,” according to NCA 5, including "collective action among nations to minimize threats...”
