Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Will The “Stimulus” Really Stimulate?

5 Comments

Economists say no:

“I think (doing) nothing would have been better,” said Ed Yardeni, an investment analyst who’s usually an optimist, in an interview with McClatchy. He argued that the plan fails to provide the right incentives to spur spending.

“It’s unfocused. That is my problem. It is a lot of money for a lot of nickel-and- dime programs. I would have rather had a lot of money for (promoting purchase of) housing and autos . . . . Most of this plan is really, I think, aimed at stabilizing the situation and helping people get through the recession, rather than getting us out of the recession. They are actually providing less short-term stimulus by cutting back, from what I understand, some of the tax credits.”

It won’t slow them down, of course. Because it’s not really about “stimulus.”

As a commenter over at Instapundit noted a few weeks ago, a government providing stimulus is like an ugly and uncoordinated person performing a lewd dance. Even if the intent is to stimulate, the effect is exactly the opposite.

[Afternoon update]

The shock doctrine:

Last year the US economy was hit with one shock after another: the Bear Stearns bail-out, the Indymac collapse, the implosion of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the AIG nationalisation, the biggest stock market drop ever, the $700bn Wall Street bail-out and more – all accompanied by a steady drumbeat of apocalyptic language from political leaders.

And what happened? Did the Republican administration summon up the spirit of Milton Friedman and cut government spending? Did it deregulate and privatise?

No.

It did what governments actually do in a crisis – it seized new powers over the economy. It dramatically expanded the regulatory powers of the Federal Reserve and injected a trillion dollars of inflationary credit into the banking system. It partially nationalised the biggest banks. It appropriated $700bn with which to intervene in the economy. It made General Motors and Chrysler wards of the federal government. It wrote a bail-out bill giving the secretary of the treasury extraordinary powers that could not be reviewed by courts or other government agencies.

Now the Obama administration is continuing this drive toward centralisation and government domination of the economy. And its key players are explicitly referring to heir own version of the shock doctrine. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, said the economic crisis facing the country is “an opportunity for us”. After all, he said: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And this crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before” such as taking control of the financial, energy, information and healthcare industries.

That’s just the sort of thing Naomi Klein would have us believe that free-marketers like Milton Friedman think. “Some people stockpile canned goods and water in preparation for major disasters,” Klein wrote. “Friedmanites stockpile free-market ideas.” But that is exactly what American left-liberals have been doing in anticipation of a Democratic administration coming to power at a time when the public might be frightened into accepting more government than it normally would.

As is often the case when the left accuses the right of something (lying, racism, hate), Naomi Klein’s thesis is simple projection.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Is This Any Way To Run A Government?

16 Comments

Is it reasonable to expect the peoples’ representatives to at least read the bills they vote on and pass, let alone comprehend them? Jimmie at The Sundries Shack has done the math:

Let’s start with two generous assumptions: that the bill remains at 1,434 pages, and it gets in the hands of your member of Congress at 8 PM. Let’s also assume that there are about 350 words on each page

In order for anyone to read the entire bill in 13 hours, they’d have to start the very minute they got it and read over 1.8 pages a minute every minute, without a break. They’ll be clocking in at a reading speed of 640.5 words per minute at that rate. If anyone needs a potty break, they’d better take the bill with them. Forget eating.

By comparison, the average human reads about 200-400 wpm if “reading for comprehension”. You only hit 640 wpm if you’re skimming the text (and the top end average skimming rate is 700 wpm and the comprehension rate drops dramatically).

Now, let’s face it, it’s not exactly unheard of for legislators to vote on legislation they haven’t read, but usually there is at least time for their staffers to get a gander at it.

This is the biggest political travesty of my lifetime, and (unfortunately) I’m no spring chicken. Which of my commenters is going to attempt to defend this?

[Friday Update]

Hope! And Change!

It stands to reason that perhaps the most basic obligation members of Congress have is to know what they are voting for. And this is doubly true on a spending bill of this unprecedented magnitude. It’s also worth noting that President Obama campaigned on pushing for explicit transparency measures in Congress. John Dickerson at Slate helpfully pointed out what Change.gov says about legislative transparency:

End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: As president, Barack Obama will restore the American people’s trust in their government by making government more open and transparent. Obama will work to reform congressional rules to require all legislative sessions, including committee mark-ups and conference committees, to be conducted in public.

Just a few weeks in office, and we already have the President enabling and encouraging one of the least transparent processes imaginable to muscle through an $800 billion spending bill. Does the administration think this amounts to change, or should I wait for them to get their new website, worsethanever.gov, up and running?

I guess we’ll just have to wait. I guess it was “just words.” Just like the words about “going through bills, line by line, and eliminating wasteful spending.” Anything to get elected.

Have these people no shame?

[Bumped]

Political Commentary, Space

Space Policy “Tensions”?

3 Comments

Rob Coppinger is hearing some rumours (if I had heard them, they’d be rumors) of dissension within the White House over the NASA administrator pick, apparently over whether or not to put a retired general in charge (at least two of the candidates, and perhaps three are). It could be that the space people favor it, but that other administration members are anti-military, but that’s purely speculation (though not an unreasonable one, knowing the types of people who would be in this administration). He also thinks that it could be a year before the administration pays much attention to NASA. Which makes all of the transition activity on the subject somewhat puzzling.

Political Commentary

More Thoughts On Liberaltarianism

12 Comments

From Matt Welch. And just feel the Jonah love in comments:

Go f**k yourself. Seriously. Shut the f**k up you fascist f**k. Eat s**t and die. You go to hell, you go to hell and you die.

Ah, the urbane and enlightened civility of Internet discourse…

It’s fascinating to look at the two parties through the distorted prisms of many of the commenters.

I continue to think that aligning with Democrats is utterly hopeless for anyone who favors limited government. The party is simply too far gone, too enamored of state power, and too duplicitous and/or delusional about the fact that it is. The real deal killer for me is their leftist tendency to tendentiously appropriate inappropriate words for themselves, from “Bolshevik” (when they weren’t really a majority) to “progressive,” when much of what they propose is a regression to the oldest idea in the world — a government ruling the individual, with little freedom of trade, and the ongoing lie that they are “liberal,” when no true child of the Enlightenment would recognize them. Not to mention their Orwellian concepts like “Fairness” for censorship and “Freedom of Choice” for union intimidation.

At least Republicans, for their multitude of flaws, occasionally pay lip service to true liberal values.

[Afternoon update]

John Hood weighs in again:

While there are plenty of libertarian-leaning politicians and activists within the GOP, albeit with varying levels of consistency and success, their ranks within the Democratic Party are scant, at best. This should be an unsurprising state of affairs. I understand there have been some serious efforts by libertarians in Washington to engage liberals intellectually and Democrats politically. I can’t comment on what I haven’t seen personally, but I can talk about my two decades of experience engaging liberals and Democrats in a state capital (Raleigh) where Dems have been in power virtually the whole time.

There are thoughtful, open-minded Democratic politicians who will listen to new ideas and are flexible enough to endorse market-oriented policies in certain favorable circumstances. You can get a Democratic mayor to try an asset sale, a Democratic governor to try toll roads, or a Democratic lawmaker to endorse a particular regulatory or tax reform. Sometimes you can even get Dems to challenge a powerful constituency in their base, as has happened in many states on issues such as charter schools. But on fundamental principle, there’s just not much overlap. They can’t get past their conflation of government with society, their vision of government as parent, and their belief that only big government has the knowledge and resources to fix social problems, keep selfish businessmen in line, and “run” the economy.

Yes, I think that Democrats are much too unlibertarian in their basic DNA to ever provide any kind of home for libertarians, particularly if the Republicans can get back to their free-market small-government roots in a post-Bush-McCain era.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

A Random Question

31 Comments

If a census recording had occurred on George Bush’s watch, and he had the process bypass the Secretary of Commerce and report directly to Karl Rove, what would the New York Times have to say about it?

[Afternoon update]

Judd Gregg has withdrawn from being Commerce Secretary, according to Fox News, and will stay in the Senate. I guess he didn’t like the thought of being treated like chopped liver when it came to the census. Another black eye for the administration’s cabinet appointment process.

[Update a couple minutes later]

“I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”

[Friday morning update]

Rick Moran:

The issue of the Census director reporting directly to the White House means that Gregg, as commerce secretary, would lose control of one of the major programs in the department. By, in effect, politicizing the Census, the Obama administration is throwing down the gauntlet and risking an all out war with congressional Republicans over the fruits of the national head count; redistricting the 535 congressional districts to reflect changes in population and the allocation of billions in federal spending. . . . Is this the real reason that Gregg decided to withdraw? Perhaps he felt he was being set up to be the front man for a Census that could cripple the Republican party for years to come and wanted no part of it. We may never know.

It doesn’t really matter. I’m just glad that he came to his senses.

[Bumped]

[A couple minutes later]

Byron York:

After he looked into it more, he said, ‘Whoa, this was a mistake.’” Plus this: “At the very least, the Census issue would have made for a very uncomfortable confirmation hearing. Gregg’s fellow Republicans on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee would certainly have asked him what he thought of a plan that would move control of the Census from professionals in the Commerce Department to Rahm Emanuel, the hyper-partisan White House chief of staff. What would Gregg have said? It was the stimulus problem all over again; Gregg couldn’t have said what he believed, but he probably couldn’t have brought himself to support the president, either.

Still waiting for all the outrage in the press about politicizing the census. Not holding my breath, though.

Political Commentary, War Commentary

Can I Be Tortured Please?

6 Comments

This is apparently some new definition of the word “torture,” with which I was previously unfamiliar:

His lawyer, Ejaz Naqvi, has filed legal papers with Mumbai magistrate’s court, claiming the “white woman” removed all his clothes and showed him pornographic films.

Well, it could have been worse. She might have actually made physical contact with his and her privates. That would have been entirely in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

Anyway, what with all the hope and change in the air, I’m sure that this barbaric practice will come to a quick end. Right after there is no more rendition or holding prisoners indefinitely…