Rather than Obama destroying the economy, there is a sense emerging that he is merely restraining it. Should Obama lose in November, there will be the greatest collective sigh of relief since 1980 and a yell that all hell will break lose, in the good sense of business activity, commerce, investment, hiring, and resource utilization being unleashed.
Look at it this way: for four years Obama has poked and jabbed at the corralled stallion, and when the gate goes up he will roar out as never before. Or if you are a Greek, try this: for 30 years we have been lectured to death about global warming, the brilliant Ivy League technocrats, the genius of Keynesian borrowing, the need for multiculturalism in the White House, if only we had open borders, why lawyers and academics need to be in charge—all on the “what if” presumption that no one in his right mind would let any of the above become gospel. And so we had the constant liberal whine, “if only.…” Now we have it in the flesh, and in cathartic fashion Obama is going to purge us of that unhinged temptation for another generation.
Plus a bonus discussion of the current state of the no-longer-so-golden state.
Lileks has some thoughts on sports stadia (with bonus mystery guests), but the phrase he uses (the title of this post) would apply as well to job creation.
…as well as links, over at Clark Lindsey’s place. I agree with his take on the reusability issue. ATK made it clear that they don’t even plan to refurbish the solids. That makes sense, given the infrastructure necessary to do so and insufficient traffic level to justify it, but it doesn’t speak to a low-cost system.
Hasn’t anyone on the president’s campaign team read his autobiography? I mean, I know the president has, when he read it while moving his lips, but he probably only read it that one time, so he’s probably forgotten most of what’s in it by now.
Via Meadia is glad the press doesn’t hate Obama as much as it hated Bush; otherwise the papers would be full every day with stories about the unintended, tragic consequences of the humanitarian intervention gone awry in Libya and about the policy failures and miscalculations that landed us in this mess. There would be eloquent lamentations and beautifully choreographed hand wringings by our professional moralists and the custodians of the collective conscience at our better universities and more prestigious magazines. There would be telling comparisons of the destruction of the tombs in Timbuktu with the looting of the Baghdad museums. There would be impassioned denunciations of the hubris that led the ideological zealots to promote the holy war, and scathing, mocking reminders of the promises they made about how nice things would be if we took their advice.
As it is, we are just doing our best to ignore the rubble and move on, while many of the same people who pushed the Libya intervention try to gin up a new war in Syria. At least if we make a mess in Syria there is a strong national interest case for the intervention, and a small war in Syria might well reduce the risk of much uglier and nastier war with Iran. Via Meadia is still scratching its head wondering what exactly we gained that was worth the humanitarian catastrophes and bloodbaths the Libyan war unleashed.
Only a few months until November.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Speaking of Libya, it has an increasing gun problem. And before anyone accuses me of being a hypocrite in my Second Amendment support, it’s not really a gun problem — it’s a culture problem.