Pen-pricks

• The View host Joy Behar went on a tirade against Meghan McCain after Meghan asked her to halt her anti-Trump rant over his denial of man-made climate change. People’s lives are directly affected by the weather. Chicago was completely snowed in on Tuesday, delaying hundreds of murders.

• Wall Street big shots are reported to be avoiding dealing with women in business out of fear of false #MeToo accusations. Let’s not put it all on women. I will address the L.A. press club Friday to announce that 30 years ago at NBC, I was inappropriately touched by whoever’s willing to settle.

• Pope Francis released a book delivering his views on social issues that are now facing the church. It’s tough love. The Pope said he’s concerned about homosexuality in the Roman Catholic priesthood and he urged members of the clergy to continue their Don’t Tell Don’t Tell policy.

Argus Hamilton is the host comedian at The Comedy Store in Hollywood and a speaker. His email address is argus@argushamilton.com.

While interest rates have increased three times in the last year it doesn’t take a financial genius to figure out why housing starts have fallen, automobile sales have fallen, and the stock market has dropped 1700 points. While the president is responsible for appointing the head of the Federal Reserve, I’m sure he has reservations about that decision.

Most of us older folks can remember when interest rates went up to 17 percent. The head of the Federal Reserve at that time was a man named Paul Volcker. Volcker was the gunfighter we needed at the time to stem inflation, which was running 18 percent. I, like many others in 1973, was in business at the time. The phone stopped ringing and I, like many others in San Diego, closed the doors to our businesses. Like all other recessions, that one also ended in a year and a half.

If the government had listened to Milton Friedman, the recession never would have gotten started. Friedman was an economic genius. His books are used all over the world to teach economics. One of the statements in his book read that “the Federal Reserve should be abolished.” If there was no FDIC you can bet the farm the banks wouldn’t need an order to raise interest rates if inflation started.

I believe that before President Trump leaves office he will abolish the FDIC. Socialism. A wonderful sounding economic/political concept. Where everyone receives an equal portion of the wealth no matter the value of their input. No more rich fat cats living off the labors of the poor, so it goes.

But you see, socialism is a false promise. Totally false. And the underlying reason is because of the inherent nature of human greed. People want to be rewarded for their effort, risk taking and acumen. Margaret Thatcher once said “the problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.” Even more, I think the biggest problem with socialism is it provides a disincentive for the producers of society to produce. If the hard working individual makes the same as the “do nothing loser,” he asks himself, “why work so hard?” Thus less is produced, resulting in everyone being equally poor.

I am not sure our country will be able to survive much longer without becoming a socialist country. Donald Trump might be the last best hope to turn around this stampede toward socialism. The liberal socialist democrats control 94-plus percent of the media, and hate Trump not because of his policies, but because he got in the way of Hillary’s coronation. Hillary was supposed to finish what Obama had started, “the fundamental transformation of America” toward socialism.

With control of most of the media, and most of the educational system, and continuous efforts by the democrats to allow low information voters into the country and get registered to vote, how long will it take for the no backbone republicans to lose more states in the presidential races? The Democrats are now working to secure Arizona, Texas and Florida. Once that happens, you can welcome socialism to our shores. At least it will solve one major problem. Once a country becomes socialist, think Cuba and Venezuela, people no longer will be breaking down our walls to get in.

Socialism has been tried many times and failed each time. So, are we going to allow the liberal, socialist democrats to lead us down the path of false promises? Only time will tell.