The Failure of the Liberal Economic Experiment?

The Failure of the Liberal Economic Experiment?:

The liberals were quick to declare "the end of capitalism" after the '08 election. It now appears that their declaration was far premature. I like this quote ... the whole article is excellent. This quote refers to an old observation on government spending -- typically, the "seen" are some more government jobs, some public works projects, maybe even a new building or bridge; the "unseen" is effectively "the bill", the higher taxes and the misallocated resources that result in a lower standard of living for all; since the "seen" is immediate, and the "unseen" tends to be less so, often even wildly off the mark government spending can be a political asset. Apparently, thankfully, not this time!!

"Because of these policies, the “unseen” became “seen” in a fashion devastating to the politicians supporting them. Americans judged that the party in power intends the radical expansion of the size of government in perpetuity. That expansion will have to be paid for. There is no reason to expect very much good from the future if you are the sort of person who generates income and creates jobs. Your “permanent income” is going to decline, and your gut response will be to husband your resources."

All the ways to Kill an Economy

Our Macroeconomic Fetish - Forbes.com:

One of they liberal problems is that they never know "when to say when". Everything they want calls for more, more, more ... more stimulus, more taxes, more entitlements, more regulation, but they have zero concept of "enough". They are addicted to government in the same way as a heroin addict is addicted to their drug of choice.

Now the semi-thoughtful liberal will say "conservatives are just the same with money, they want more, more, more money for the rich, and there is never such a thing as enough".

To which I'd reply, spending and making are NOT the same thing! Bill Gates is fabulously wealthy because he was the best at putting personal computers on everyone's desk. Warren Buffett is fabulously wealthy because he is the best allocator or scarce economic resources in the world. Putting limits on either of these guys limits us all -- not just them. Taking both their fortunes and spending them buying votes from unions doesn't grow a thing (other than more government bureaucracy when the same crooks get elected).

Great article, read it. A sample on the lack of limits:

"The situation is only worse because while our Keynesian disciplines preach the need for more stimulus now, they offer no explanation as to how much stimulus is too much. The law of diminishing returns applies to every known human activity, including government decisions to prime the pump. Yet both Tyson and Krugman give us no hint about when to quit or why."

Basically, there is more than one way to kill an economy, and BO and company are coming close to finding them all.

It is possible to tell a similar tale of woe in virtually any other sector that comes to mind: health care, energy, environment, banking and money, securities regulation, corporate policy, intellectual property. At every stage we see a populist frenzy to support new layers of regulation, each of which in its own way kills jobs and chokes off economic growth.

In sum, there is more than one way to kill an economy. Ours is dying a death of a thousand cuts, which no stimulus program can cure.

Government Pay, Upside Down

Government Pay: Now For The Really Bad News - Forbes.com

Not only are we getting fleeced, we are paying them make our lives even worse while we pay them more to do it!!!

By now, most Americans are familiar with the newly revealed statistics concerning federal pay. As we slept, as it were, our federal minders awarded themselves impressive pay/benefits increases that average out to $123,000 per year, compared with $61,000 in the private sector.

Not only are we fleeced to cover the rising pay and gold-plated benefits of federal workers, we're essentially paying them to make our lives more difficult. The more they're able to do so, the more they advance.

I Pray He is Right!

Hugh Hewitt: Seventy percent of Americans know they've been conned | Washington Examiner

Super column, concise, just READ IT! Something solidly over 50% ought to be good enough, please oh please make it so!

Two years into what had been sold as a new politics and a new approach, the 70 percent are fully aware that they have been conned, suckered, and taken to the cleaners by a hyper-ideological amalgam of leftist public intellectuals, snarling bloggers, career politicians with limited abilities who are often corrupt, and a president wholly inexperienced in the management of complex problems who is in way over his head and prisoner to slogans and schemes that make for great campus debates -- but for disaster in the real world.

Actually, it is more like 4 ... the Dimocrats took over congress in '07 and the slide got a good start ... but for two years, they have had no excuses whatsoever. 


Let the end of their disastrous rule be limited to just the two years of hell we have already been through!

BO On Bike

Ah yes, remember the days when a dorky picture of W would be plastered all over? Wonder how far and wide this gem will get to go? Maybe the worship has finally slipped a bit, this seems like a gem.

Remember Europe?

Op-Ed Columnist - The Parent Model - NYTimes.com

Back when W was President, any contrary opinion from Europe was automatically worthy of a lot of study -- and to pay a lot of attention to it was "arrogant". Naturally, with the advent of BO, the MSM is now of a completely different mind -- when Europe has a different opinion from BO, they must be wrong, as is everyone else that disagrees with the brilliant failed community organizer.

Now, we have some emerging results. Germany spends 1.5% of GDP, trims labor costs, increases employment flexibility and enjoys a 9% GDP growth. We spent 6% of GDP, give a bunch of kickbacks to unions/threaten future unionization ("Card Check"), pass a bunch of new laws to make employing people more expensive and restrictive and the result is 1.6% growth.

Is this absolute proof that Germany is completely right and we are completely wrong? **NO!! ... it is INFORMATION, just like when Europe would have some anti-Bush thing to say. We get smarter by looking at data and results, we get stupider when we let ideology be our ONLY guide ... which is the left-primary view.

Oikophobia

Oikophobia - WSJ.com

The Ground Zero mosque is an affront to the sensibilities of ordinary Americans. "The center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence," as theAssociated Press has reported. That Americans would find this offensive is a matter of simple common sense. The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that's a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.

The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' " What a perfect description of the pro-mosque left.

By jove, I think he has got it! It takes no other sense than "common sense" to identify a Victory Mosque opening on 9/11/11 as an abomination, and common sense is the the sort that Oiks oppose most vehemently!

Yet the oiks' vision of themselves as an intellectual aristocracy violates the first American principle ever articulated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . ."

This cannot be reconciled with the elitist notion that most men are economically insecure bitter clinging intolerant bigots who need to be governed by an educated elite. Marxism Lite is not only false; it is, according to the American creed, self-evidently false. That is why the liberal elite finds Americans revolting.

Ok, I'm SURE that he has it! This is EXACTLY what we have going on, and BO is the "Uber-Oik"!

Telling Us How to Think

CNN Compares Ground Zero Protestors to Nazi Sympathizers | NewsBusters.org

Any questions how we ought to think about protesting the mosque if you are a "CNN believer"?

See any mild difference in CNN treatment of Muslims, compared to say "the Religious Right"??

 Remember, the positions of the farthest out of the "Religious Right" on gays, treatment of women, freedom of expression, etc are LIBERAL in comparison to even "moderate" Muslims. The only significant reason that I can see for supporting Muslims over the imaginary "Religious Right"  is that the percentage of Muslims that hate America is WAY higher. I'm still waiting for the left to come up with another reason --- "you are a racist if you don't support it" is name calling, not a reason.

Live Free or Die

Obama Misreads Message of ‘Live Free or Die’: Amity Shlaes - Bloomberg

The founders wanted states to be the "labratories" that allowed Americans to test various government policies to see what worked, and to allow people to choose between different approaches, yet remain American. Shales does a good comparison between Maine and New Hampshire (thus the "Live Free or Die" ... state motto). As should surprise nobody, larger government loses.

This jury has been in forever, the only problem is that peoples memories are too short, and they confuse best available and unattainable perfection as goals. Free market policies are more successful, they are not perfect (humans are still involved). Recessions and potentially even depressions will happen, but there is nothing that can't be made worse (or less good) by the intervention of the government! As in the '30s, government can always make the pain deeper and longer lasting.

Just look at the current TX economy relative to CA or NY. The world had the best laboratory case that one could ever see with East and West Germany for 50 years + of the difference between more free and less free -- same people, different government, vastly inferior result on the more government side.

Greed is a deadly sin, but so is envy. Humans are very prone to both, but capitalism harnesses greed to grow the economic pie for all (imperfectly). Socialism harnesses envy to get supporters, but it only "produces" increasingly angry people fighting over an ever shrinking economic pie.

RealClearPolitics - No Compromise on Mosque

RealClearPolitics - No Compromise on Mosque

This is not a complicated matter. If you believe that an entire religion of upward of a billion followers attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, then it is understandable that locating a mosque near the fallen World Trade Center might be upsetting. But the facts are otherwise. Islam was not in on the attack -- just a sliver of believers. That being the case, those people with legitimate hurt feelings are mistaken. They need our understanding, not our indulgence.

See, it is simple. It has to be THE WHOLE religion before anyone MIGHT be "upset". Of course, the complete intolerance of Islam, a religion that demands the church and state be one, is not a consideration. Let's see, was it THE WHOLE "religious right" that "wanted to look in bedroom windows" just a little while ago?


The left wing of this country that can't stand even a Christian movie (remember "The Passion"?) is just brimming with "tolerance" for a religion in which wives can be beaten, gays are to be stoned, and ALL nations are to be united under Sharia law! How ought be "get along" on this?  The left has their typical answer; NO COMPROMISE! It is the "moral left" against the "bigots, demagogues and uninformed".

Appearing on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," Daisy Khan, a founder of the mosque (and the wife of the imam), rejected any compromise. She was right to do so because to compromise is to accede, even a bit, to the arguments of bigots, demagogues or the merely uninformed. This is no longer her fight. The fight is now all of ours.

Reality Is

As economy slows and Fed voices conflict, markets look to Bernanke for guidance

The major power in the US Government is in the Congress. The Democrats took over in '06, we are now in our 4th year of Democrat rule and over 2 years into recession. Reality 1.

Wishful thinking is not a policy. Government is FAR more limited than what the left likes to believe relative to the economy. If it were not so, then the USSR would have been a huge success, and Japan and the European economies would have done vastly better than the US. They did not and are not -- but since we have made a hard turn toward emulating their approaches, we are seeing the same results -- only worse. We are much larger, so their bad policies are mega-bad when applied to the US.

The idea that "the economy always cycles and this is just a cycle" is based on way too short a sample set. BO and the Democrats talked the economy down as hard as they could in '08 in order to add to their election victories. The word "depression" was quite common leading up to the election. Their assumption --- and most people's assumption, was that the economy was going to bounce back quickly and that the stimulus was just a little extra insurance --- that is why they used most of the stimulus to transfer to states, largely to pay off government and teachers unions for supporting their election. They figured the economy would go up "like it always does" and they would claim credit.

Democrats yelled about deficits that were tiny relative to GDP -- and they always talked about those deficits "crowding out" loans to small business and consumers in the midst of a growing world wide economy. Now they are running multi-trillion dollar deficits in a global recession, and they have forgotten all about "crowding out". Democrats have no sense of perspective. I would have much rather seen smaller or non-existent deficits under Republican administrations, but those deficits were MUCH smaller, AND other than '82, they were in much better economic times. A few drinks are fine, not "perfect", but fine -- the Democrats are drinking a 5th of debt whiskey for breakfast, that is a problem!

At some point, people are going to have to start believing in THEMSELVES again! First, we have got to get a WHOLE bunch of government off our backs! 

Economy Stalled

GDP report - latimes.com

As we ought to have learned in the 30's, 60's, from Japan, from Europe, or from many other sources, capitalism is an imperfect system, but vastly better than the alternatives. Dem-O-nomics -- rob from the rich, the future and the productive, and give to the poor, the political cronies and the non-productive, DOESN'T WORK!!!!

That Old Ad Hominem Refuge

Charles Krauthammer - The last refuge of a liberal

If you can't figure out any way to beat your opponent on substance, call them names. The essence of liberal argument. Another great one by Charles.

Reviving Us-Versus-Them Politics - Newsweek

Reviving Us-Versus-Them Politics - Newsweek

Remember that point after the 2K election when Democrats said "the court has spoken, let's all come together behind our new president as Americans"? Or after we were attacked on 9-11 and Democrats said "we are all American's, let's come together and support President Bush as he goes after the Axis of Evil"? Remember that?

Well, Elanor must, because this idea of "us vs them" is a new idea that Republicans are just reviving now!

During the 2008 presidential primaries, 7 percent of those polled in Texas, Florida, and Ohio thought Obama was a Muslim and 40 percent didn’t know what his religion was, “a near majority guilty of gross ignorance.”

uh, so what does he mean by "Obama's religion"? I think everyone knew Kennedy's religion -- Catholic. I'm thinking that W was a Methodist, but I'd be completely unsurprised to find that 40% (or more) didn't know that that (or that I might be wrong). AFAIK, BO attends no church at all at this point -- so what is the right answer? Unchurched?

7%??? I believe that you could get a poll that had 7% believing anything ... including that both they and BO were space aliens. What does THAT have to do with anything??

Understanding Analogy

Charles Krauthammer - Moral myopia at Ground Zero

Charles scores a 2nd good column on the Mosque issue, but I think the discussion of the different views of analogy and symbolism are the important part.

I'd proffer two items that based on many books and articles I believe to be as close as we currently get to scientific understanding of human thought:

1). We ONLY learn via analogy -- there is no "built in human brain instruction set", or "engrams", "collective unconscious", or other techie or murky spirituo-psycho building blocks of thought. It is all neurons, and the only "there, there" is the sucking and startle reflexes. It is a vast web of neural relationship.

2). Every analogy is imperfect -- as is every model of the universe. There are many that map quite precisely, but then one gets to the quantum level and finds even those are less precise then we had hoped. We are often confused because our MODELS (maps) can be VERY precise ... but alas, they are not the territory.

So for me, the operative paragraph is this:

Where the president flagged, however, the liberal intelligentsia stepped in with gusto, penning dozens of pro-mosque articles characterized by a frenzied unanimity, little resort to argument and a singular difficulty dealing with analogies.

Since we understand by analogy, when there is a conflict on an issue, it is almost always a conflict of analogies. For some reason, that comes out especially clearly on the Mosque issue.

My belief is that is because liberals see Islam as essentially the replacement for communism in their "enemy of my enemy is my friend" model. The USSR used to be the most potent anti-American power, so liberals were USSR apologists. Now, Islam is the most potent attacker, so they have moved their apologetics to that front.


We know they are not huge "religious supporters" -- see constant battles on any sort of visibility of Christianity; 10 commandments, prayer anywhere public, Christmas trees and manger scenes, etc. 


We also know they are not "minority religion supporters"  in any general way ... see treatment of Mormon sects -- which BTW have many of the same problems as Muslims relative to multiple / very young "wives".