Peter Schiff makes the case before the Austrian Scholars Conference, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 13 March 2009. It’s an hour and sixteen minute YouTube video about the compulsion to chase fantasy. And while the Madoff suggestion is tongue in cheek, his discussion is entertaining in a serious sort of way. The indictment is that the system unwinds bubbles with yet more bubbles. One question I mentally had was whether this was true of politics also.
The alacrity with which cultural and political institutions have submitted themselves to the wrecking ball will fascinate historians for generations to come. A recent article in the Weekly Standard has attempted to answer the question of how American capitalism died without putting up a fight. The answer, according to Andrew Stuttaford, was from within. He describes how one group of rich people decided to bring down another group of rich people with the aid of the merely prosperous.
it was somewhat less predictable that a large slice of the upper crust would succumb to Obama’s deftly articulated pitch. Yes, it’s true that there had been signs that some richer, more upscale voters were being driven into the Democratic camp by the culture wars (and the fact that prosperity had left them free to put a priority on such issues). Nevertheless, even after taking account of the impact of an unusually unpopular incumbent, it’s striking how much this process intensified in 2008–a year in which the Democrats were not only running their most leftwing candidate since George McGovern, but also running a leftwing candidate with every chance of winning. …
certain aspects of the 2008 campaign came to resemble a millionaires’ brawl–one that was, of course, decorous, sotto voce, and rarely mentioned. … Traces of this can be detected in parts of Robert Frank’s Richistan: A Journey through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (2007), a clever, classically top-of-the-bull-market account of what was then–ah, 2007!–America’s new Gilded Age. To read this invaluable travelogue of the territories of the rich (the “virtual nation,” complete with possessions, that Frank dubs “Richistan”) is to see how the emergence of a mass class of super-rich could fuel growing resentment both within its ranks and, by extension, without. By “without,” I refer not to the genuinely poor, who have, sadly, had time to become accustomed to almost immeasurably worse levels of deprivation, but to the not-quite-so-rich eyeing their neighbors’ new Lexus and simmering, snarling, and borrowing to keep up.
It is almost as if the graduates from the schools of government and arts and science faculties decided that Obama gave them a chance of revenge at the business school graduates. Now who wouldn’t jump at a chance of that? But they were the cannon fodder, according to Stuttaford. The real moneybags behind Obama were the “Croesuses” who saw the chance to use the great overly-washed to lead a revolt against their rivals. And wanted their rivals down, not so that they could offer people “hope and change”. They just wanted it all. According to this narrative, American capitalism ended not in revolution, but in a bank-robbery abetted by multitudes of PhDs. The end result won’t be socialism, according to the Weekly Standard article: it will be aristocracy.
embedded by Embedded VideoThese Croesuses are rich enough scarcely to notice the worst (fingers-crossed) that an Obama IRS can do. They were thus free to vote for Obama, a candidate whose broader policy agenda clearly resonated with many in this nation’s elite and who seemed at the time both plausible and unthreatening. The shrewdest or most cynical amongst them will have realized something else, something that an old Bolshevik might call a class interest. The onslaughts on Lower Richistan and on Wall Street will make it more difficult for others to join them at mammon’s pinnacle and thus to compete with them economically, politically (particularly in an era when McCain-Feingold has greatly increased the importance of being able to self-finance a campaign), and socially.
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The one bubble bursting that won’t bother me is the education bubble.
If it doesn’t burst while the Messiah is president, it will only be because the Feds are pumping in money, and it will certainly burst soon thereafter.
“Educated” doesn’t guarantee “intelligent” or “wise” and those qualities are what we need now.
Interesting.
For years I had a little rap about how all the tax subsidies for houses actually made them more expensive for Americans. Wealthier Americans got a much bigger tax subsidy (or a smaller penalty, if you want to look at it the other way) for buying a more expensive house. So mortgages would be more expensive for those with less income to shelter. Contractors would be building palaces instead of bungalows, driving up the cost for materials and land etc. Meanwhile, investment capital for business would be less available.
But I didn’t realize the bill for all the extras would show up all at once.
At one point they said we were not saving our money for our retirement, we were saving houses. Gee, how’d that work out? Now it’s “invest in government.” Which makes even less sense.
Bubble. Someone pumps in easy money/loans using other peoples’ money. Demand soars on limited supply. They keep jacking up prices/enthusiasm and everyone thinks they’re getting an “investment” on something bound to go up. But the easy money stops, so demand stops, so the bottom falls out. The “investment” pops. Government bails out its buddies using other peoples’ money.
Bubbles I have known:
Easy dotcom startup money (popped)
Easy housing loans (popped)
Easy education loans (bubble still inflating)
Does government create these bubbles on purpose for the sake of big money donors?
Now there will be a voting bubble as pursuant to this ruling non citizens may vote in Georgia.
h/tip R-Revo
The next bubble is the United States Treasury. The FRB is pumping money into Biils/Notes/Bonds artificially to try and keep the plates spinning as if this were an old Ed Sullivan Show. There are hints in the data and FRB minutes that the recent run up in the stock market is due to FRB accumulation of equities. Yet another plate spinning. Unstable, but unsure when the instability leaves the performance envelope into catastrophic failure mode. The bond market is melting and the stock market will follow when reality can no longer be screened out with babble about green shoots.
The proper term for “bubbles” is malinvestment.
Described in the Austrian theory of the Business Cycle.
I’m not sure Schiff is right about the ability of the rest of the world to “decouple” from the US for two reasons. I think he underestimates the level of interdependency among countries. But secondly, he underestimates the role the US plays as the security provider of last resort. If the US economy implodes, all kinds of bad things which have lain dormant this last 60 years will roam the international scene again.
But let’s take the issue of decoupling first. Stratfor just sent out a link to “The Geography of Recession”. Look at these figures.
Just now the NYT is bannering an article that says Unemployment in Spain Hits 17.4%.
It doesn’t disprove Schiff’s thesis that government makes things worse; it simply underscores the possibility that other countries have been shoveling themselves into a grave even faster than the US. Which has gotten me to thinking that the current crisis is a World Crisis; and it seems inevitable that many of the institutions and elites which currently dominate the scene will be swept away. If it is half as bad as it looks then we are looking at new world after this is over. Your guess is as good as mine about what will survive. But I’ll observe that much of the familiar PC regime and welfare statism that we see now is already part of the status quo. They are the establishment; and therefore threatened by the gathering storm.
Stuttaford explains what I’ve been saying for some time regarding the different categories of the rich, in particular the hyper-rich. By allying themselves with an administration and an ideology that sabotages the free market system and entrepreneurship, the current uber-wealthy will not have serious competion to worry about into perpetuity, if the current ideology prevails. It also means that they will be major players in governing policy as never before in our history.
What is the proper term for that, oligarchy or plutocracy?
A better description of what we are seeing might be described as crony capitalism grafted onto a social democracy. The biggest irony is that it is the Democrats who are making this happen, and have become the party of the rich.
“”"”"he underestimates the role the US plays as the security provider of last resort. If the US economy implodes, all kinds of bad things which have lain dormant this last 60 years will roam the international scene again.”"”"”
One of the most dangerous things that world leaders are doing now is expanding the EU notion of “harmonization,” where all economic systems must be on the same page and following the same philosophy. Also, they are going after so-called tax havens.
One of the things the world has always needed are special places and special people to circumvent ideological and social strictures that have the unintended consequence of retarding progress and going counter to human nature. The world needs the Switzerlands, the Singapores, the Hong Kongs, the Caymans, and yes, even the Israels, as economic and sociopolitical safety valves. Medieval Europe needed the Jews in order for commerce to grow and survive, and thrive, just as South East Asia needed the overseas Chinese, and East Africa the Indian settlers. Even at a smaller level, societies form red-light districts and duty-free zones to take care of delicate societal and economic issues. Creating special places and special people for these exigencies which always come up in human society is part of the algorithm that governs human nature, and must not be messed with.
The U.S. is the biggest, baddest of the special places the world really needs, and this is the meaning of American “exceptionalism.” The world economy is a food chain with America at the top. If we go “social democratic” on the world, the world suffers.
Hi Richard,
Reality differs from politics in many ways. The world is not “wholeistic”, as the liberals like to say, its actually paradoxical.
Your comment concerning rich and poor and left and right is a good case in point.
It is thought that the rich are rich because of capitalism. But that is not really the case for all of them. Many rich are rich because of their loose affiliation with such institutions as the public schools, the heavily subsidized medical world, the defense department, or various influence peddling organizations (see trial lawyers). They live well and live that way largely through their relationship with government planning.
Meanwhile, its thought that the poor are poor because of capitalism. This is not really true either. In a majority of cases, they are poor because of socialism. They live at the margins because the planners couldn’t find a place for them, and because they couldn’t find a place for themselves once the government run schools got done with them.
The difference, of course, is that the socialist rich understand that they are rich due to the socialists, but the poor do not know why they are poor. Both vote their divergent interests in the same direction and get more of the same.
Along comes an Obama, who really seems to believe it all. He really believes the poor are poor because of capitalism, and the rich are rich because of capitalism, and decides to rectify the situation. He will probably remain above it all for quite a while – whether reality will ever intrude is really anybody’s guess.
While all that is happening, everyone notices that it is only the rich who pay any taxes. The rich are highly effected by asset bubbles. When bubbles deflate, tax receipts plummet far faster than GDP or incomes.
It is now Mr Obama’s move. Try to push socialism even deeper into the education and medical world, while tax receipts are falling. Maybe he’ll get some reprieve by a new bubble giving the rich a new boost, generating sufficient tax receipts now, and giving a whole new class the blame for “causing” the bubble that is yet to form.
James
John Batchelor had a Michigan politician on his show who described the “apocalypse” that is now overtaking the state. He claims unemployment will be over 20% soon. Schiff is right: the disease is being treated with pathogens. The result of the automotive bailout may well be the annihilation of the industry. Obama’s policies will decimate minority employment while appearing to palliate it. It’s the economic equivalent of his foreign policy. What he claims will make things better will make things worse. Like thirsty man being offered a drink of gasoline in the desert. In the economic sphere, inflation and anti-business environment will pauperize many of the very people who trusted in Hope and Change.
But it won’t pauperize everybody. Crony capitalism in every case creates a class of the super-rich surrounded by oceans of destitution. So if BHO’s policies lead to a new aristocracy of “winners” in his new system, then the future of America will resemble that of Latin America, with its wild and oscillating enthusiasms and extremist politics.
Richard, one of the points that you have made over time is that the best way to defy an ideology is to ridicule it.
Clearly, the Chinese were doing that to Geithner when they openly laughed during his remarks about the safety of China’s investment in Treasury bonds.
This is a defining point for me for the current US media to not report this highly embarassing event. Imagine if Bush or a Bush official suffered the same fate? The US media seems to be in full blindness to the Emperor Having No Clothes.
If the chips start to fall, the warning signs are quite clear. At least they are to the Chinese.
Many Thanks Wretchard!
I enjoyed that. It was nice to see an articulate presentation of economics that didn’t rely on sound bites and voodoo.
Again, Many Thanks for drawing our attention to it.
John Batchelor had a Michigan politician on his show who described the “apocalypse” that is now overtaking the state. He claims unemployment will be over 20% soon.
I’ve been traveling to the Detroit area on business a few times a year since 2005. It’s like a ghost town – empty malls, empty neighborhoods. One of my friends there jokes that they put up billboards that say, “Cheer up! We have almost 90% employment!” The state and corporate policies that brought Michigan to the brink of a Starnesvillian existence are exactly what the current administration and legislature are bringing to the rest of the country. Government largesse and management capitulation to unions will do what we’ve already seen happen. Yes, socialism is the great equalizer – it makes everyone equally poor. With wage deflation and commodity inflation there will be difficult times ahead. Many of the wealthy will still be fine, so long as they don’t hold enormous debt and are prescient enough to invest in some non-dollar denominated investments.
The wealthy who voted for Obama can be divided into three groups: those who got their wealth quickly and easily through the internet bubble (Yahoo, google, etc), entertainment types, and those who inherited wealth. People who earned their wealth slowly, by building a business, suffering failure and working long hours to make it happen tended not to vote for Obama. There is a distortion in the minds of the first three groups about wealth. They, and the hangers on who surround them, believe that wealth is easily achieved, and have no clue how hard others work to build wealth.
Think of the yahoo and google founders: billionaires after a year or two in business, while they are still pimply faced twenty somethings. Think of the Hollywood starlet, a smashing success by age 22 and purchasing mega mansions in Beverly Hills. And the socialites? The wealth has always been there. They never had to work for it.
Compare that to a small businessman, who starts a chain of auto parts stores, or a restaurant, or a doctor who builds a thriving practice. These people all had to work for years before they got to taste the fruits of their labors. They understand that wealth takes time and hard work to build. And that it is tenuous, and can evaporate with wrong decisions.
Add to the ‘easy wealth’ crowd those who get ahead by currying favor with the powerful and you have your elite Obama voters. Think academics, NGO types, community organizers, and government bureaucrats, and all the lobbyist, wall street, near government ilk.
They think they got where they are because there is something special about them. And that they need to be in charge of other people’s lives, in order to form a better society. They want to tell us how much money is enough for us to make, what to eat, what to say (PC), what light bulbs to put in our homes, what cars to drive, and even what to think. For our own good, don’t you see.
The problem with all those people is they have no sense of human nature. The laws of reward and punishment have been distorted in their experience and so they don’t take them into account when planning their ideal of a perfect society. Thus, their ideals (or manipulations, for the cynical among you) are destined to total failure. This occurs when people respond to rewards and incentives that the elite haven’t taken into account and fail to respond to their government dictates.
Their grand experiment will not end well.
The phrase that gets me in Stuttaford’s article is this phrase about the rich: “…the fact that prosperity had left them free to put a priority on such issues…”
So with little or nothing to fear from an Obama Admin, because their lifestyle is insensitive as to whether they have $100M or $75M in the bank, they decided it would be kinda fun to have a neat new trendy black foreign president. They have all the bread they need – so let everyone else eat cake.
The main thing that I wonder about in the current situation is how to we make sure the “moral hazard” goes into effect. As someone who has worked there I can tell you that setting priorities in Wash DC is based on 3 little words: Make It Hurt.
How do we make the results of their actions hurt, not only the poor people who danced in the streets saying that Obama’s election meant they would no longer have to pay for a home, for a car, and for gas but also those who cannot conceive of ever worrying about those issues? The Blood In The Streets answer is not an acceptable one, inevitable or not.
If indeed “…the future of America will resemble that of Latin America, with its wild and oscillating enthusiasms and extremist politics” then the rich will get their share of the wild and the oscillating aspects, because US citizens are not Latin Americans. But that is a tough alternative at best.
“Fans, fans and cool people everywhere. I assure you…there will be MONEY enough for us all! Even the lowliest junkie will be apportioned money enough to buy his junk! But please look the other way for a moment, while I …cough..cough…ugh…temporarily borrow 10 trillion dollars from the mouths of unborn babies. I assure you, it’s just to SIMULATE the economy. And pay no mind if the American auto industry perishes under so called government mismanagement. It was inevitable, I tell you, and OUR caring government was just insuring a soft landing. And pay no mind to the man behind that curtain, Dorothy! Nothing to look at there, folks. Move on!”
can someone once again tell me the upside of letting 12 million illegals over the borders.
Sometimes if you ask for too much you end up getting nothing at all. The only silver lining behind the current cloud is that a lot of people are getting angry–people that didn’t ordinarily concern themselves with politics. So long as the political class didn’t really affect the lives of the common people and were moderate in their stealing and corruption no one really cared that much.
Obama and the people behind him have changed that dynamic, I hope. They have gone too far too fast. They are no longer under the radar screen. I hope and suspect that the general outrage will result in the Democrats being thrown out of power just as soon as election dates permit.
I would imagine that a decent accountant in California with the right access to the state’s books could easily provide what it has and is costing the state to provide services to the illegal aliens, non documented workers, transients, what the heck ever you want to call them. Those costs should be made known and compared to the state’s budget deficit. Call it a case study.
Tcobb you are too optimistic, ACORN would not allow what you hope and suspect to transpire.
Revelation
Elby #16: I recall that when the Dot Com Bomb went off in 2000, on a radio program one day they read the case of one of the poor dot commers. A whole 29 years old, the poor lad had been worth something like $30M at one time as a result of the IPO he was associated with, but after it all collapsed he was left with a mere $500K and was having trouble dealing with the loss. Now, at that time I had retired after 25 years in the USAF and had gone back to work for a private firm and was still driving a compact car I had bought new in 1978. And I had a whole $500K to my name at that point as well. The difference was, I had some actual accomplishments to show where the money came from. The dot commer had some nonexistent website he created that was associated with a silly idea that flopped. And he was having trouble dealing with the situation? Well, so was I.
Out of that experience, though I think many people concluded that they had a God given right to fast and easy money if the right guy came into the White House. It was Bush’s Fault that their plan to sell toilet plungers and troll dolls over the Internet failed. A Democrat would have bailed them out. And in fact Gray Davis in Calif was tossed out of office, and one reason was because he bailed out his good buddies at Cisco Systems to the tune of $300M worth of stuff the state did not need.
Charles No.19: Letting all those illegals in is a requirement if you are going to build thousands and thousands of houses and condos – which, it turned out, that no one actually needs. And of course, they added considerably to the housing demand as well, a self licking ice cream cone. And it also is a requirement if you have a lockstep block voting segment of the population who thinks they should not deign to take those kind of jobs because they would be “working for chump change.”
Joe Buzz No.21 I think that calculation for California has already been done. I heard the number the other day, on the order of $25B I think it was. However, please note that they are always careful to state that the police forces and other public service providers never seem to bother asking the people they have to handle if they are legal residents. It just ain’t on the forms.
Charles–#19
can someone once again tell me the upside of letting 12 million illegals over the borders.
Joe Buzz–#21
I would imagine that a decent accountant in California with the right access to the state’s books could easily provide what it has and is costing the state to provide services to the illegal aliens, non documented workers, transients, what the heck ever you want to call them.
This is one example where Progressives are actually correct. The biggest failure of the free market/Capitalist system is that it utterly fails to produce the required number of poor people needed by progressive politicians to ensure that they will be voted into office. Without societal poverty they are nothing. They are kind of like professional rainmakers in a tropical rain forest;
business will be light at best.
Because of this fact it becomes necessary to import such commodities as poverty from more progressive nations that produce it with such great efficiency.
Just consider, we started a “war on poverty” many decades ago. The front line “soldiers” earn salaries from this–what would happen if they actually won the war?
The mention of ghost town Michigan brings to mind the recent antics of Michael Moore. His series of articles entitled “Screw You, GM” is demonstrative. Moore’s boogeyman has finally been brought to its knees and taken over by an aggressive Federal Government, yet its pretty clear GM will be hemorrhaging jobs and share price, and despite taxpayer subsidization, will continue to decline and fail.
Moore was a fat dog chasing cars, and had no idea what to do when he finally caught one. The only lame thing he can come up with as thousands of GM workers are losing sleep at night is “The Government will do a much better job running GM than GM ever could, so Happy Days are here again.” I can only chalk this up to Leftist willful ignorance about how the world actually works.
*** Secret doubt that plagues me occasionally: Do you ever wish you could just swallow the Kool-Aid and embrace what’s happening to the U.S.? Just accept, and trust the Dems to lead us into the Promised Land? Whenever I consider it, I just can’t bring myself to abandon honor, faith, strength, and liberty. ***
Recently a “rumor” was floating about that the administration was closing down auto dealerships that were contributing to McCain & Republicans. It was then pointed out that the vast majority of car dealers are Republican leaning and therefore natural statistical principles explain this.
Stattaford is generally the stereotypical libertarian — leave me alone with my money, leave me alone in my decadence. The quick rich can afford decadence and can not fathom why everyone else should not be allowed to revel in decadence. Can we say “Murphy Brown”?
The notion that an aristocracy is forming in our society is one that has struck over the last few years. The term oft used is “limousine liberal” (I would say liberal is a misnomer here) they show up to a party in a gas guzzling limo eat pricey large carbon footprint foods, listen to music created with carbon generated electricity, get back in their limo, and on their private Lear and cross fly over country.
However, when some 9-5 Joe in flyover country wants to buy a truck the emerging aristocracy tut-tuts and tells them they can not. The notion they are doing this to save the earth or whatever is a rationalization — they are the crab boilers — attempting to keep the crabs in the pot.
Novanglus-
Buraq Hussein Obama, the dutiful muslim, has enslaved our infidel nation to our enemies, particularly our muslim enemies and the Chinese. To his way of thinking we have been put in our rightful place, dhimmi second class beggars. Yes, we have become reduced not just to a debtor nation, but a beggar nation. Silly Timmy the Tax Cheat is circling the globe, hitting up our enemies for a small down payment on our now massive debt, we can only put a dent in. We have become like the pitiful n’er to well spendthrift acquaintance /friend who is always hitting up everyone he knows for a loan, a loan that everyone knows he can never repay.
For you see, Buraq the Magnificent has enslaved us all with trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see; deficits that will lay our infidel nation low and prostrate, and ready for Islam or China to conquer. Allah must be greatly pleased with our wonder boy Buraq, who has dazzled many a American with his soaring deceptions, while at the same time, dragging us down to dhimmi beggar status so quickly.
John Rutledge, now has a great blog, and has great post” Simple guide to deficits and interest rates”, a great primer on what these deficits will do to us. http://rutledgecapital.com/2009/05/31/a-simple-guide-to-understanding-budget-deficits-and-interest-rates/
So, Wretchard, is the U.S. “too big to fail?”
Do you ever wish you could just swallow the Kool-Aid and embrace what’s happening to the U.S.? Just accept, and trust the Dems to lead us into the Promised Land?
No. It’s not worth it, even if it means you can watch all the men the Left hoist by their petard, reduced to beggary and finding that their anticipated privileged position based upon a progressive record means nothing to a jumped up flunky who’ve risen through the Party apparatus. Because you will hate yourself in the end, not so much for what you’ve materially lost, but for giving up the one little thing you can hang onto all your life.
Wretchard, yes a revolt of the Millionaires, but also women.
Obama’s electoral success did not just happen with millionaires, Bill Gates, Buffett, and Soros. It was women who put him over the top. Women who detest Republicans (and all their principles). Women who hate military action, law enforcement, who sympathize with terrorists (just watch the View), criminals, and want a nanny-state that punishes their great enemy: White Men, while rewarding the “correct” groups such as Gays, Blacks, and of course Women.
Women are free to engage in these gender hatreds and wars, because they don’t need men. Rising standards of living, most of based on Female/Gay exclusive provinces, like marketing, government work, fashion, advertising, entertainment, etc. allow them shelter from the production-based parts of the economy. Women LOVE aristocracy.
In fact, women cannot get ENOUGH of Aristocracy, whenever and wherever it appears. Every woman dreams of being a magical princess, or being swept off her feet by Prince Charming (aka Obama), and the more aristocratic the society, the better it is for women. Who have fantasies of being more beautiful than they are and moving upwards into the Aristocracy.
While of course, their hated rivals, ordinary men, are kept down.
The revolt of the Aristos did not just happen among themselves. Women backed it to the hilt.
Of course, the ordinary men won’t just disappear. Modern Life under Obama offers them nothing, and the competition for women means that either men descend into thuggery that makes America ungovernable (as a way of compensating), see Latin America, with periodic overthrows of the old Big Men by new Big Men, or a widespread “peasant’s revolt” led by the male-dominated, ordinary men military.
Communism was imposed by the chaos of armed rebellion, or Soviet Military might, or other places where only one armed wing (the Communists) had a military monopoly. That’s because that Aristocratic system (which is what it is) is deeply threatening to men, most of them, in the competition for women, the second most need for men beyond safety, food, and shelter. A gigantic police system was needed to keep it in place, because of the compeititon for women (seen best in “Lives of Others,”) and the innate self-interest of most men to overthrow the system … for women.
Wretchard,
How do you define that one little thing you can hang onto all your life?
I don’t think I have quite identified it yet. Pride of self-sufficiency? Strength of conviction? Fidelity to a great moral tradition? Independence? Braveheart-esque “Freedom”? What makes people like you and [most] BCers think and act the way that we do, in contravention of, and these days in direct opposition to, the Left?
In my youth (said partially in jest, I’m only 26), I never really just blindly accepted conventional wisdom or norms. As my teenage years faded, the same sense of individualism and liberty has blended with a love and respect for the Judeo-Christian moral heritage and value system. Right now, that’s all I really know. My best answer is that my “one little thing” is: I know exactly what, and who, I would fight for.
A colleague said to me ‘if we all just acted and behaved as we did a year ago, there would be no downturn, no recession’. I told him that the Madoff ‘clients’ would be happy and go with that POV.
The same colleague, I’m not making this up, told me six months ago that Obama’s Ivy league education and ‘ability’, would allow him to rise to any occasion and do the best for all of us because people like him are special and unique. (I’m paraphrasing and reworking , but not too much).
Puppy mills produce collectible puppies. I’m more proud than ever of my non puppy-mill education…..
How do you define that one little thing you can hang onto all your life?
I think you have to find that for yourself. All that I can say is that when my son asked me if there was a Heaven I answered that I truly believed that for as long as we did nothing infamous, nothing would ever separate us. You have to save something from the abyss; something which you believe has a chance of enduring; some flame of love. Perhaps we will all be asked our names for the second time in our awareness someday. What name will you give?
31. buckets asked Wretchard,
How do you define that one little thing you can hang onto all your life?
I don’t think I have quite identified it yet. Pride of self-sufficiency? Strength of conviction? Fidelity to a great moral tradition? Independence?
——
1. Street smarts. 2. a well tuned BS detector (see #1). 3. A sense of reason?
“How do you define that one little thing you can hang onto all your life?
As Wretchard said to his son, so mote it be.
Once you have a child it becomes very clear to you what is important and what it is you would gladly sacrifice yourself and all you own and ever hope to own for. And for the life of me I cannot fathom how parents of leftist persuasion go blindly into the abyss and taking their innocents with them.
Perhaps–just perhaps–that “one little thing” is our own reason for existing. Perhaps–and just perhaps–there is a higher power that has given each and every one of us a task to perform in life, and the “one little thing” that we do may cause the rain of pebbles that creates the avalanche that destroys the armies of the mighty.
How do you define that one little thing you can hang onto all your life?
I can still recall the first time I encountered a US military officer that would say anything and do anything, make any promise and break it just as fast, all simply to advance his career and those of others with his point of view. And after that first realization then meeting others of that type seemed to come fast and furious. Interestingly enough, this realization came soon after that inevitable fateful day when you realize that your highly experienced boss is wrong.
And then in DC I met the politicians, and you can use your imagination there. And then there were the bureaucrats whose integrity suffered not only from ambition, but, especially, from the simple desire to find time to eat lunch and get home before 2200 on that particular day.
Pres G.W. Bush has said some remarkable things that give us some insight into that One Little Thing. At his first inauguration he said that we needed to realize that “an angel rides the whirlwind.” Shortly after taking office he said that the secret of the success of the USA is that we are kind to one another; I thought that was not a very good answer. But on 9/11/01 we saw much evidence of both American kindness and of angels riding whirlwinds; Flight 93 was an example of both.
But most recently Pres Bush said that he is most proud of having held that great office without hurting his soul, without compromising his basic principles. That is his One Little Thing; it’s not a bad one. It may be the only one that matters.
James @ 11: Good analysis there. Allow me to disagree on a minor point: You wrote,
“[Obama] will probably remain above it all for quite a while – whether reality will ever intrude is really anybody’s guess.”
Obama will never acquiesce to reality, and neither will his supporters. When failure inevitably arrives–whether in the form of hyperinflation, a second 9/11 or a second American civil war–leftists will simply fall back on their standard whine: “You didn’t give us enough time!” (or power, or whatever). The Left *cannot* allow failure to be attributed to socialism or Progressives or Big Government, no matter how clear the evidence may be.
Elby @ 16:
“The wealthy who voted for Obama can be divided into three groups: those who got their wealth quickly and easily through the internet bubble (Yahoo, google, etc); entertainment types; and those who inherited wealth. People who earned their wealth slowly, by building a business, suffering failure and working long hours to make it happen tended not to vote for Obama.
There is a distortion in the minds of the first three groups about wealth. They, and the hangers on who surround them, believe that wealth is easily achieved, and have no clue how hard others work to build wealth….Add to the ‘easy wealth’ crowd those who get ahead by currying favor with the powerful and you have your elite Obama voters. Think academics, NGO types, community organizers, and government bureaucrats, and all the lobbyist, wall street, near-government ilk.”
Spot on. I don’t know a single leftist who believes wealth has the slightest connection to hard work. Indeed, every leftist/socialist I know believes that wealth is essentially an accident, like good looks, being born rich or winning the lottery. Obama seems to have the same beliefs.
Tcobb @ 20:
“Obama and the people behind him…have gone too far too fast….I suspect that the general outrage will result in the Democrats being thrown out of power just as soon as election dates permit.”
Wish you were right, but don’t think so. There are now far too many dumb, non-working, non-tax-paying voters in this country. And they’re *never* gonna see any reason to vote against a Democrat no matter *how* bad conditions get–in fact, one can make the case that in really bad conditions the poor are likely to believe the rich will lose more than they will, which would make them relatively better off than in prosperous times.
>it seems inevitable that many of the institutions and elites which currently dominate the scene will be swept away.
I honestly think that reality is too frightening to consider for most folks. So anyone who has a pipe dream to offer, they will take it.
What I quoted from Wretchard’s comment is what happened a century ago. There was a world of unprecedented prosperity and possibility. Education, technology, even flying like birds. The hubris pushed the elites into a war that destroyed the world as they knew it, and discredited them forever. And unleashed ideologies that killed in the millions.
There is a radically reactionary pattern to everything this administration is doing. Realist foreign policy. Shoring up dying industries and corporations. The response to the financial crisis was to try to get it working as before.
I think Wretchard is right. The world as we knew it is already gone. What replaces it is unknown. And almost every powerful institution is trying desperately to keep the old one going.
They will fail because the institutions failed for good reasons.
Derek
Many of the comments are like blind men describing an elephant. To change the metaphor, the elephant in the room is that the very rich can buy almost everything — the media, both political parties, the election and hence the administration and hence the US treasury. For them the ideal society is a global one that they control. Their biggest obstacle is the US Consititution and the nation created thereby.
If you only watch Obama’s actons, it is clear that his managers are intent on destroying every aspect of the constitution and capitalism.
The verbiage spouted by his teleprompter is intended to obfuscate. An entire army of well-meaning socialists, community activists, journalists and college professors has been enrolled to support the Grammscian Chicago hoods (mercenaries) abetted by bitter ex-communists (anarchists).
A perfect storm, so powerful that one’s only useful action is to describe it.
Roderick Reilly @ 10; note “harmonization” was one of FDR’s code words, deftly deployed sweetly against disagreeable factions, that is, parts of the system manned by those not in kow-tow. The failed “packing” of the supreme court was framed as a noble effort to “harmonize” the courts and the legislature.
news reports that the admin’s Gary Gensler is preparing the case for a new unitary regulator to oversee a full slate of financial reforms aimed at the flaws exposed by the current crisis.
Gary Gensler is the guy who (under President Clinton) planted the seed that enabled the ‘apre moi, le deluge’ in the first place. If interested, it’s all in search –type the name and [ credit default swap ]. The year 2000 is a time of interest.
winslow @ 40;
A perfect storm, so powerful that one’s only useful action is to describe it.
–how perfectly said.
Recently a “rumor” was floating about that the administration was closing down auto dealerships that were contributing to McCain & Republicans. It was then pointed out that the vast majority of car dealers are Republican leaning and therefore natural statistical principles explain this.
The pointers are in error. While it is true that the majority of dealers are Republican, it is not true that 100% of them are Republican, yet all (I don’t recall if there are 1 or 2 Democrats) of the to-be-closed dealers are Republican. Statistically, that’s so unlikely as to be essentially impossible were dealers chosen in an unbiased manner.
Bob, “pay-to-play” does not function well without the public animal-sacrifice ceremonies.
Bob, “pay-to-play” does not function well without the public animal-sacrifice ceremonies.
Whose ox are you goring here? I don’t understand the reference.
i was adding to your observation, Bob. One would think that closing dealerships on a political basis would be unthinkable due to the negative publicity. i was trying to ask, “What negative publicity?”
Buddy, you are surely one poster that I read as often as Wr himself.
Winslow, I do not believe it is _our_ rich who are the major players. They are just intermediates between the princes of OPEC/China and USA socialists. Regardless, they do seem to have synergy…
Veracious, I do not know who the very rich are, or how well they are coordinated. There are countries with huge sovereign wealth, the various oil fortunes and the drug money. There are various interests who promote one-world government, some of them associated with great wealth. GWB seemed to be one such agent, a do-gooder with such a personal agenda (I felt his support and deference to the UN quite unconscionable) as to have neglected his constitutional duties and, although quite ignorant of economics, was lucky enough to have reduced taxes, excuse my veering off topic.
thanks, veracious –that’s mutual –i also keep an eye out for yours!
winslow, re your wondering, take a look at muckety dot com sometime. The relationship maps and attendant outlines of known relationships are a quick way to start tracking policy and policy effects, and the kieretsu which attend their birth and later remunificense.
for example