The glass is either half full or not empty enough. The people who worry about ‘empty’ include the US Chamber of Commerce, which predicted high unemployment and a weak economy in this election year. The Christian Science Monitor quotes Chamber of Commerce president Thomas Donohue as saying, “The state of American business is improving – but it is doing so weakly, slowly, and insufficiently to put our nation back to work. ” The Monitor writes:
The Chamber is the nation’s largest organization representing both small and large businesses. A key challenge to President Obama’s reelection effort is the fact that 23 million Americans are unemployed, unwillingly working part-time, or have given up looking for jobs. To put these individuals back to work, “our economy has to grow much faster than it is today,” Donohue said. The Chamber predicts the US economy “will actually slow down in the early months of the year,” he said.
The Chamber estimates economic growth will average about 2.5 percent in the first six months of 2012 and then “work its way back to about 3 percent by the end of the year,” Donohue said. That prediction is in line with forecasts of private forecasting firms. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News predict growth of 2.3 percent for 2012, while Moody’s Analytics predicts economic growth of 2.6 percent.
Incidentally, a reader noted that the Baltic Dry Index is in sharp decline. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) tracks worldwide international shipping prices of various dry bulk cargoes. A fall in the index is worrying sign of declining business activity.
The index indirectly measures global supply and demand for the commodities shipped aboard dry bulk carriers, such as building materials, coal, metallic ores, and grains. …
The supply of cargo ships is generally both tight and inelastic — it takes two years to build a new ship, and ships are too expensive to take out of circulation the way airlines park unneeded jets in deserts. So marginal increases in demand can push the index higher quickly, and marginal demand decreases can cause the index to fall rapidly.
A Sign That We Need More Hope and Change
So the idea that the world is in rough times and high unemployment is certainly plausible. But that doesn’t worry everybody. Some people believe the economy is doing badly because it is too full of the wrong kind of economic activity.
Inside Higher Ed reports that left wing student groups are trying to exclude representatives from the financial industry from recruiting on Ivy League campuses, in the way the US military was once excluded. This has not gone down well, even with the students. The Harvard Crimson and the Daily Princetonian denounced the protests as ineffectual and “childish”.
But others harked back to the 1960s, when it became embarrassing to admit openly on campus to considering employment at the Dow Chemical company.
“If you are embarrassed to admit that you’re going to go to work for one of these firms, that’s an argument against picking that kind of a job. I think that that was a cultural shift you saw in the 1960s, where in 1957 if you said you were going to go work for Dow, that was a very exciting thing. But if in 1969 you said you were going to work for Dow, that made you a persona non grata in a lot of circles.”
Who said the sixties would never return? In the hopes of some, it already has.
From the leftist point of view any activity has another metric, which for want of a better term can be called ‘political content’. Thus the utility and value of the financial sector, or work in it, is not reflected in the market or in something so sterile as the Baltic Dry Index. True value is reflected by an application of social, that is to say political, criteria to it. Just as back in the 1960s, to work for a public interest law firm was ‘good’ but to work for Dow chemical was ‘bad’, today joining OWS is good and letting banks recruit on campus is bad. Market signals are secondary. Even if the market wants financial services of a certain type, and is willing to pay for them, political value is the controlling question.
Ultimately the superposition of a second value system over the market requires even more political action. It may be local, as in convincing a university to ban recruiters from banks. Or it may be legal, as in actually prohibiting such recruitment by law. Recruiters from ‘bad’ companies will be treated like cigarettes; tolerated in very limited circumstances but shunned otherwise.
The difficulty of course, is in getting supply and demand to fall into lines with the second value system. Even if the forces of political correctness could somehow gain power over every political institution, they could not command food to spring up from the ground nor cause goods and services to come into being. That requires the price signal, which as we have seen, should be overridden when it comes into conflict with the sensibilities of the enlightened.
George Will, writing in the Washington Post, recognizes that applying a political criterion to economic activity will not abolish capitalism, only create its mutant offspring: crony capitalism. Empowering government to pick winners and losers, argues Will, will only make it more certain that the politically connected and venal, not the efficient, rule the roost.
The tax code, government’s favorite instrument for distributing wealth to favored factions, has been tweaked about 4,500 times in 10 years. Generally, the beneficiaries of these changes are interests sufficiently strong and sophisticated to practice rent-seeking. …
Government uses redistribution to correct social outcomes that offend it. But government rarely explains, or perhaps even recognizes, the reasoning by which it decides why particular outcomes of consensual market activities are incorrect. When taxes are levied not to efficiently fund government but to impose this or that notion of distributive justice, remember: Taxes are always coerced contributions to government, which is always the first, and often the principal, beneficiary of them.
The Left has never had a bone to pick in principle with the financial industry. They have called it the “high ground of the economy”. The only problem they have ever had with it is not being in control of the purse. Give it to them and they will like it just fine. If financial services companies declare they will only recruit people recommended by ACORN — watch the doors open wider than than wide.
The President’s electoral strategy recognizes this fact and blatantly builds upon it. Faced with the near certainty of a bad economic climate in an election year his message-makers have decided to argue that it is the lack of the second value system that is the cause of hardship. Times are hard because the Other has been “greedy”. The economy is therefore “unfair”. The present difficulties have been caused by the bad guys, the class enemy.
Therefore the solutions put forward for the economic crisis spring directly from the suggested value system. The world can be saved by adopting moral, i.e. “green” energy; it can be rescued by redistribution; it can be led forward by showing humility toward America’s enemies, in order to atone for past guilts. In a word, all our current economic problems have political solutions. And all solutions involve putting the “right people” in charge.
His message is simple. In this world it is “us” versus “them”. Join me and Happy Days Are Here Again.
People may take one side of the argument or the other in this debate. Surely they will vote for one point of view or the other. But it should be abundantly clear that this argument — whether to fix the current crisis by market means or political action — is what the 2012 Presidential elections is all about.
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Fabian capitalism. Just what we need.
The value of the opinions of left wing campus dilletants is underwritten by wealth. That is either generated by the productivity of Mom Dad and Dow or it is the type of wealth that comes from the barrel of a gun.
THE YIN AND THE YANG
There is the yin
There is the yang
The grievous sin
The bloody fang
Of market forces
In full sway
Producing courses
That well may
Lead on to those
Who’re left behind
Where daily goes
The deadly grind
How better then
The second way
Where all good men
Receive their pay
From jobs that seek
No harm to Earth
Protect the weak
From day of birth
There is the yang
There is the yin
Choose bloody fang
Or without sin
“The state of American business is improving – but it is doing so weakly, slowly, and insufficiently to put our nation back to work. ”
They are getting signals from so-called Republicans like Nude Green Grinch that profits are “obscene” and reforming bloated companies to compete globally is “vulture capitalism”. Really, with capitalists like Gingrich and Buchanan who needs leftist Ivy League professor Presidents?
The Michael Moore narrative that corporate giants are sitting on a big stash that they refuse to “invest” in creating jobs resonates in certain circles. Apparently, among some, this is tantamount to treason.
The WH and executive branch have already been implementing Castro-like policies to punish outsourcing and capital flight. Which does not explain giving Brazil money to drill and money to build fighter-trainer aircraft for the U.S.
Why Brazil? But I digress.
‘I have one word for you – plastics…’ Dow chemical has done very well for itself over the past 45 years or so. 35 years ago my brothers wife started working for IBM and has been with them ever since. All I can say is my brother married very well.
For what it is worth, I found a new word today:
Ineptocracy(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) -a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
In a way it is a matter of degree. The traditional view has been to remove as much political content from the operation of market forces as was consistent with public order. To the notion of limited government was added the idea of a federal structure, which allowed one regulatory environment to compete with another.
But over the years, as Leo3 and others have argued, the emphasis has shifted over to centralization. Both the Republicans and the Democrats now see central government as a solution. It is the sender of signals, the decider of decisions. What both parties argue over is policy — the shape of the solution — rather than the governance question, which is “who decides”? That question already has answer: ‘us’.
Today the bureaucrat decides. Government decides. And the men behind them, like ACORN or OWS decide. And they decide for us — everybody — because they are so much wiser, though that may be disputed.
This process has been growing for a long time and the capstones are now being levered into place. Unfortunately these masterpieces of bureaucratic achievement are being undermined by their own rotteness. They are teetering and none among its architects knows why.
The challenge for 2012, it seems to me, is to get someone in the White House who understands what the crisis signifies, and has a modicum of integrity and honesty to deal with it. That seems little enough to ask of someone, until you realize that someone is already part of the system.
5. Don Rodrigo, “The Michael Moore narrative that corporate giants are sitting. . . .”
Ha. Michael Moore IS a corporate giant, in every sense.
What.
9. Roughcoat
I want Moore to go on a hunger strike to protest corporate recalcitrance with its “stash.”
The hunger strike would go on so long that a GOP President will have been installed, and the corporations will have unleashed the “stash” by the time Moore calls it quits.
Moore can then take full credit.
“… applying a political criterion to economic activity will not abolish capitalism, only create its mutant offspring: crony capitalism. Empowering government to pick winners and losers, argues Will, will only make it more certain that the politically connected and venal, not the efficient, rule the roost
…
But it should be abundantly clear that this argument — whether to fix the current crisis by market means or political action — is what the 2012 Presidential elections is all about
….
The challenge for 2012, it seems to me, is to get someone in the White House who understands what the crisis signifies, and has a modicum of integrity and honesty to deal with it.”
Wrechard, you are like a baby calling out in the night for Ron Paul, how unfortunate that you won’t abandon this refusal to enter the fray.
You write: “That seems little enough to ask of someone, until you realize that someone is already part of the system.”
Yes, Ron Paul has been part of the system for decades but before you throw out the baby with the bath water you have to consider how he has been made to pay for this. He suffered for decades for doggedly harping on through the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s about things no one cared about then like the Fed, Bubbles, Fiat and Gold, Market Manipulation, Crony Capitalism, and Military Adventurism. Well reality has finally caught up with Ron Paul’s message. And just as he has stayed true to his message, so has his message been proven true. Just watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Da6irSCvnZY#!
76 years old, no teleprompter, no script, no handlers, just the truth.
Wrechard, please come out of the closet about Ron Paul!
From “Road to Serfdom” (Hayek, of course):
‘The “social goal” or “common purpose” for which society is to be organized is usually vaguely described as the “common good,” the “general welfare,” or the “general interest.” It does not need much reflection to see that those terms have no sufficiently definite meaning to determine a particular course of action. The welfare and happiness of millions cannot be measured on a single scale of less and more. The welfare of a people, like the happiness of a man, depends on a great many things that can be provided in an infinite variety of combinations. It cannot be adequately expressed as a single end, but only as a hierarchy of ends, a comprehensive scale of values in which every need of every person is given its place. To direct all our activities according to a single plan presupposes that every one of our needs is given its rank in an order of values which must be complete enough to make it possible to decide among all the different courses which the planner has to choose. It presupposes, in short, the existence of a complete ethical code in which all the different human values are allotted their due place….But where all the means to be used are the property of society according to a unitary plan, a “social” view about what ought to be done must guide all decisions. In such a world we should soon find that our moral code is full of gaps.’ (from chap 5 “Planning and Democracy”)
later, same chapter: ‘It may be the unanimously expressed will of the people that its parliament should prepare a comprehensive economic plan, yet neither the people nor its representatives need therefore to be able to agree on any particular plan. The inability of democratic assemblies to carry out what seems to be a clear mandate of the people will inevitably cause dissatisfaction with democratic institutions. Parliaments come to be regarded as ineffective “talking shops,” unable or incompetent to carry out the tasks for which they have been chosen. The conviction grows that if efficient planning is to be done, the direction must be “taken out of politics” and placed in the hands of experts-permanent officials or independent autonomous bodies.’
Long quotes, sorry, but applicable….
If you recall those pictures of stadiums filled with well dressed North Koreans who have not missed a meal lately you have all you need to know about how government works and what politics are all about.
We are kidding ourselves if we think that the gray suits in Washington and New York are any different in kind than those gray suits in Pyongyang. We are certainly better off than the tens of millions of North Koreans we never saw on camera, but that is only because of a lack of opportunity for the rent-seekers and not will.
W: “From the leftist point of view any activity has another metric, which for want of a better term can be called ‘political content’… True value is reflected by an application of social, that is to say political, criteria to it… Even if the market wants financial services of a certain type, and is willing to pay for them, political value is the controlling question.”
The second system is the Marxist class system – whatever benefits the so-called proletariat class – and the Marxist ruling class – is good. Whatever benefits the middle class is bad.
“The proletariat [lazy, tax-eating, non-disabled under-achieving, government-dependents] will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital [property] from the bourgeoisie [laboring, tax-paying middle class], to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state [Marxist Government].” Karl Marx
Good
“Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property. You must, therefore, confess that by “individual” you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible.” Karl Marx
Good
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
Whatever is good for the Marxists – and their pet proletariat class – is bad for the rest of us – and ultimately bad for the proletariat class – because the proletariat class will end up in poverty along with the former middle class – once middle class labor – and the fruit of that labor – is extinguished.
“When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work (proletariat class) because the other half (middle class) is going to take care of them, and when the other half (middle class) get the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else (proletariat class) is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation.” Dr. Adrian Rogers
http://www.lwf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lis_quote
Crony capitalism (economic fascism) also fits into the picture. Marxists actually depend on fascist economics to generate unnatural economic inequality (as opposed to the natural economic inequality of free enterprise) so they can step in and create the unnatural economic equality of serfdom – except for themselves of course – and their fascist (crony capitalist) buddies.
@13. Peter Boston
“We are kidding ourselves if we think that the gray suits in Washington and New York are any different in kind than those gray suits in Pyongyang.”
If NDAA, Patriot Act, TSA, SOPA, Homeland Security are all Federal government programs designed to, among other things, keep the civilian populace at arms length from the elites, then what is the real difference between the US military and the Nork Military? All the Kim’s would have ardently argued that all these military expenses were necessary to protect their freedoms, their way of life and their constitution. It is all just a matter of degree and Lincoln was really the first Kim in America when he invaded the south.
@13. Peter Boston 13: “We are kidding ourselves if we think that the gray suits in Washington and New York are any different in kind than those gray suits in Pyongyang.”
ConfederateH 15: “If NDAA, Patriot Act, TSA, SOPA, Homeland Security are all Federal government programs designed to, among other things, keep the civilian populace at arms length from the elites, then what is the real difference between the US military and the Nork Military?”
George Orwell answered the question.
“Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure; the same worship of a semi-Divine leader; the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare. It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up like three sheaves of corn… The war therefore… is merely an imposture… For though it is unreal it is not meaningless; it eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War it will be seen is now a purely internal affair… In our own day we are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects; and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.” George Orwell – 1984
“then what is the real difference between the US military and the Nork Military?”
F-22′s, B-2′s, Nimitiz class carriers, M1A2 SEP 2 MBT’s, Predator drones, etc. all crewed by volunteers (Except the drones).
Very few civilians realize that South Korea and the USA could eliminate the Norks in 48 hours and China could do f**k all about it. The Norks exist only because it is to the advantage of certain circles in America to have them exist.
It is like having a rock in your shoe. Rational people remove the rock. Others use it as an excuse to sit on their fat, lazy arse and do nothing.
I know that in theory they are far apart, but in terms of functionality is there really much of a difference between socialism and crony capitalism? I think we tend to place too much emphasis upon legal concepts of ownership rather than the traditional reality of the concept of ownership, which was control over that which you owned. That distracts from the underlying reality.
If you “own” a car, but must submit a route plan to the government before you can drive it which must be approved by them first, and if you are required to maintain it at facilities specified by the government, and if you cannot sell it except at a price and to persons who are approved by the government, do you really “own” the car?
If someone runs a big corporation that is successful purely due to political connectivity is that truly any different than the same person running the same enterprise if it belongs to the government and he is a political appointee? Sorry, in functionality its the same thing. They have the same power and the same perks. Only the labels used to describe what’s going on are different.
The only solution I can see is firing the government. By that I DO NOT mean violent revolution, but simply to stop funding it through paying taxes; IOW, hit ‘em where it hurts. This was the idea behind the original Tea Party (not exclusively, I know, but in effect)and why it resonates so well within conservative camps.
When those providing you services in exchange for payment provide poor service AND pad the bill for services you never wanted, do you a)continue paying for poor service or b) fire the incompetent slob and find another way of getting the services you want in the manner you want them? Combine this with the errosion of state’s rights and the solution is clear: Demand services from your state under conditions you, the taxpayer, set for reasonable exchange of fees to fund it. Your state government can negotiate for national services (18 ennumerated powers anyone?) and be accountable to you for this.
The taxpayer should be setting the price for government services at all levels, including any pension plans, since they are the employers of the government. Soon we will discover how much government we actually need. And ALL citizens should pay the same percentage of taxes. Or they can go live in a tent and have no input to the process since they are not participating. (You know, no skin in the game, eh Barack?)
Maybe the way to get the pols to see the light is to propose disbanding state governments. Might as well save the money since they have already abdicated their responsibilities. Either way, we have to attack their ricebowls.
The Left has never had a bone to pick in principle with the financial industry. They have called it the “high ground of the economy”. The only problem they have ever had with it is not being in control of the purse. Give it to them and they will like it just fine.
They ought to love it just fine then by about this fourth of July, if my Mayan blood (who knew?) is right and we have another financial crisis by then and the only move is Dodd-Frank nationalization of one or more major banks, and quite possibly all of them just to be “fair”.
And wouldn’t that make for an interesting November vote!
Tcobb 18: “I know that in theory they are far apart, but in terms of functionality is there really much of a difference between socialism and crony capitalism?”
Crony capitalism is economic fascism. Marxism and Fascism are both “Left” on the line which measures government power over the individual – the line which measures the power of a small group of other poeple over the great mass of people.
“Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation’s economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of control. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property – so long as the state reserves to its self the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property. If “ownership” means the right to determine the use and disposal of material goods, then Nazism endowed the state with every real prerogative of ownership. What the individual retained was merely a formal deed… which conferred no rights on its holder. Under Communism, there is collective ownership of property de jure. Under Nazism, there is the same collective ownership de facto.” Leonard Peikoff
“Private Property as conceived under the liberalistic economic order was a reversal of the true concept of property. This “private property” represented the right of the individual to manage and to speculate with inherited or acquired property as he pleased, without regard for the general interests… German socialism had to overcome this “private,” that is, unrestrained and irresponsible view of property. All property is common property. The owner is bound by the people and the Reich to the responsible management of his goods. His legal position is only justified when he satisfies this responsibility to the community.” Ernst Huber – Nazi Party Spokesman
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/review_rand.htm
http://www.peikoff.com/lr/chapter1.htm
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property… In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend… In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things. In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.” Karl Marx
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
To paraphrase Hayek; if we had to rely on centralized government and centralized planning then our industrial system would never have reached the degree of differentiation, complexity and flexibility that it has recently. The growth of centralized policies that try to direct economic activity will only reduce industry to a condition of incredible clumsiness, rigidity and diminished scope. Crony capitalism is doing this right now in the U.S. courtesy of regulations (e.g. EPA) and picking favourites (e.g. green energy), both of which devices kill opportunities.
I think that it’s irrelevant to agonize about whether President Obama is incompetent or evil. He is whatever he is. In any case it’s a good bet that he could never be swayed from the path of central planning. For the single reason that “anybody but Obama” might be susceptible to arguments for decentralization, it seems to me that step one is to get “anybody but Obama” into the Presidential office.
To get things turned around will take decades. There is more chance of changing the question from “what policies” to “who decides” under a succession of placeholder Presidents whose single virtue is not being a zealous missionary for centralization, than there is when the President is a committed central planner.
It looks as if a significant percentage of the U.S. electorate agrees with Obama about centralizing government. Then whom would it be easier for the rest of the electorate to persuade – a RINO or Obama?
@16. Storm-Rider: great quote, and it has all gotten very Orwellian.
@17. stoicheion:
“The Norks exist only because it is to the advantage of certain circles in America to have them exist.”
So if this is true, and if we apply the “follow the money” principle, then not only are the US military as bad as the Norks, they are worse. Combine this with all fiat currency financed fancy weapons systems you mentioned: “F-22′s, B-2′s, Nimitiz class carriers, M1A2 SEP 2 MBT’s, Predator drones” then America is good and well screwed just as Wetchard is saying. BTW, the Norks have plenty of volunteers to staff their elite guards.
“….we have another financial crisis by then and the only move is Dodd-Frank nationalization of one or more major banks, and quite possibly all of them just to be “fair”.”
We may indeed see crowds surrounding the banks if Obama attempts to nationalize them. However, I would submit, the crowds will not be there to occupy the banks: they’ll be there to PROTECT them from the government.
Franz Oppenheimer also saw Wretchard’s first and second value systems in terms of how one makes a living:
“There are two fundamentally opposed means whereby man obtains what he needs to sustain himself. These are work and robbery: one’s own labor and the forcible appropriation of the labor of others.
I call one’s own labor…the ‘economic means’ for the satisfaction of needs, while appropriation of the labor of others shall be called the ‘political means.’”
— Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943), The State
I sat down and took a look at my investment situation over the past week and I think I now understand the true import of crony capitalism.
2011 was an “up” year for the stock market, right? From early January 2011 to early January the Dow went up about 800 points. Yay.
But for my mutual funds, their value decreased over that same period by well over $60K. Now, I did not even have $60K worth of take home pay last year, so that is not a small amount of money to me.
Not only that, but those same mutual funds that went down so markedly in value generated over $7K in taxable income, which I will have to pay taxes on. There goes another $2K or so.
I took immediate action upon realizing this. I went out and ran 50 rounds of 9MM through my C96 Broomhandle Mauser. I found out that it is a good thing I was not in WWI. There is nothing cooler looking than a C96, and it shoots nice, but its a Nancy Pelosi to try to load, even using, finally, the correct stripper clips. I need a better handgun.
And I need to get out of the stock market.
Now I gotta go clean my Mauser.
Many political philosophers regard government, with its inevitable political content, as a necessary evil. Pure anarchists believe we can actually do without any government at all. Others, probably including the founders, understood the rapacious nature of government, but accepted that a limited form of it, well circumscribed by checks and balances, was necessary to maintain the peace.
But the left is different in that they actually see government as a positive good. What to others is to be warily watched is to them something to be embraced at every opportunity. The one caveat they bring to their admiration of government is that it should consist mostly or at least be controlled by them.
The way they define tyranny is a powerful government not controlled by them. The way they define the Worker’s Paradise is a powerful government controlled by them. But in no wise do they believe in a less powerful government. The levers of power are obviously required; and they believe it is self-evident that government “does things” and point to the “benefits” and “protections” the populace derive from it.
The only issue is who wields the levers. The answer, with no false modesty, is evidently that it should be wielded by none other than themselves.
What they never mention is who pays the bill for the benefits; nor do they say who pays for the costs of protection. In fact the discussion of payment is avoided altogether and we are given the impression that everything is “free”, though of course, nothing is gratis.
That is because government never produces anything, and even in the frictionless case, it can never do better than taking from one pocket to place it in another, more deserving pocket. But in the common case a certain diminution occurs in the process. After all, the rulers have to eat. But that is just a reasonable service for the privilege of being ruled so wisely.
It’s good work if you can get it. Nothing about this arrangement is new. Centuries ago this very system was called the rule by an aristocracy, but that term has fallen into disuse today.
Straight Arrow 25,
Franz Oppenheimer took his cue from an even greater man.
“In the early days of the world, the Almighty said to the first of our race ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’; and since then, if we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been, or can be enjoyed by us, without having first cost labour. And, inasmuch [as] most good things are produced by labour, it follows that [all] such things of right belong to those whose labour has produced them. But it has so happened in all ages of the world, that some have laboured, and others have, without labour, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To [secure] to each labourer the whole product of his labour, or as nearly as possible, is a most worthy object of any good government.” Abraham Lincoln
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=1&subjectID=1
“With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.” Abraham Lincoln
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1067
“That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.” Abraham Lincoln
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/liberty.htm
The economy that we presently enjoy requires a culture and regulatory system that no longer exists. In my opinion, like Greece, we have passed a point of no return. The index of dry goods is an indication.
The Belmont Club is one example of the required culture. However, the Gummint regulation and debt are probably unsustainable. When government interferes with capitalism (productivity and trade) the rate of creating prosperity is reduced. As in Russia under Yeltsin, it can be reduced below a sustainable level and catastrophe ensues. (It was more because of bad economic advice from the likes of Saks, rather than the ineptness of Yeltsin.)
It seems to me that the challenge is to preserve the necessary culture or even a geographical island of capitalism somewhere in the world.
As much as I complain bout the TP writers, it seems they also write for RINO’s like Romney.
In the Soviet Union (or the United Soviet Socialist Republics), there was a system by which The Party ruled, controlled and maintained it’s grip. It was not the Gulag, or the KGB or the Lubyanka or the things they represented – those were just external manifestations of something else.
It was the Nomenklatura, the people on the list.
The Nomeklatura were a relatively small group of key people from whom loyalty was expected and favors were bestowed. Sometimes the Nomenklatura were not even Communist Party members (although rarely), but not all Party members were of the Nomenklatura.
Manifestly, I remember an evening over 20 years ago watching “Wall Street Week” when one of the guests spoke of “the Lead Bulls”, who were the relatively handful of financial people who directed the business of Wall Street Capitalism.
In every “system”, there are the Nomenklatura or “Lead Bulls” that have disproportionate power and influence than the average man. But how are these people selected, chosen or achieve such a status?
In times long past in America, these people were sometimes “Machine Politicians”, successful capitalists, politicians, writers, thinkers, but largely people that had reached that “position of pull” by some measure of ability – and sometimes not. But they also sometimes shared a common notion of the Polis which helped sustain the country. When these ideas became too divergent, we had an episode called historically “The Civil War”.
In America today, there is a group of people that are the economic and political “lead bulls”, but what has become apparent (even though we may not be able to truly identify just who all these people are) is that their political and business ideology has become estranged from much of the American “polis”. There is no easy answer to this dilema, as not all these influential people are elected (thank heavens), and many that are elected are influenced by the invisible hand of the those who wield more true power.
The observation that those who wield power publically and privately are philosophically estranged from most of the people of the US should give us pause as to why that has happened, and just what do these people truly believe and what beliefs do these people share among themselves?
But the political and philosophical sickness that has overcome us is not something that can be cured or changed by one election or even a series of elections. The deeper sickness can only be cured by a New Renaissance of values and ideals that are consonant with our ideal of government, no matter that our ideals fall somewhat short in reality. Because we are now infected with a deeper sickness and anomie, of a deeper general dissatisfaction that will endure beyond Obama, Romney or the next Congress that convenes in Washington in 2013.
It is not “Obamacare”, but the underlying ideas that made it happen, as well as the financial bubble and collapse and the possible long term financial stagnation that may await, and the demographic death wish that has overtaken many of the Western nations.
“A Republic, if you can keep it.” Bemjamin Franklin
“A Philosphy if you can find it”. Leonard Peikoff, from “The Ominous Parallels”, regarding the slipping of America into fascism. Which is becoming incredibly more likely as the years slip by.
“In my opinion, like Greece, we have passed a point of no return.”
We are certainly “inside the event horizon”
If a country has a debt to GDP ratio of 100% like the US and AUS(fast approaching) then it is toast.
Think of it this way, If you are growing at a measly 3-5% and you are paying 3-5% interest on your debt. Then ALL GROWTH must be appropriated by the government JUST TO PAY THE INTEREST on the Debt.
Under these circumstances the GROWERS (producers) have no incentive to Grow. and will stop Growing /producing.
Govt Defaults or Economy Dies. There is no other pathway,. And certainly no way back from %100.
The predictions from the establishment are based on the status quo ante, if I remember my Latin. Nary a black swan in sight. No Assad running for the coast pursued by mobs with blood in their eye, no Soviet….. er Russian canoes doing a Dunkirk in the Med. No Hezz_Bo_Allah shooting off their rockets on a use them or lose them basis. No IAF F-15′s making hot runs on ammo dumps full of rockets. No US Navy air strikes on Iranian PT boats while they attack tankers in the straits…. No Russian Mechanized Divisions rolling into the Ukraine. No tyrants figuring the water is troubled, Let’s Go Fishing.
All the Black Swans staying snug in their nests, waiting for who knows what.
What are the odds?
“then not only are the US military as bad as the Norks, they are worse”
I don’t think we mean the same things with the words we are using.
The purpose of a military is to kill people and destroy their works. Dress it up pretty, powder it’s bottom and perfume it and when the nitty gets gritty, a GOOD military is one that does a better job of killing people and destroying their stuff.
So to say a military is ‘BAD” is to say they do a poor job of killing people and blowing stuff up.
I submit that it is not the case with the US Military and as evidence suggest you google ‘Highway of Death”.
Now whether or not killing people and destroying their sh!t is a good thing or a bad thing depends on ones POV. Ron Paul believes that everybody is good and there are no people out there who need killing. History makes him a fool or a liar. Take your choice. The MIC is like a runaway horse. You don’t whip out you pistol and shoot it in the back of the head, you pull back on the reins until it slows down. Or you pull to one side and run it in a circle until it gets tired.
RWE, my favorite pistol is the CZ-75b in .40 cal S&W. It is a military weapon and quite reliable. I got mine before they became trendy and paid 350 or so for it at a gun show. I think they are at market today, which is between 6 and 8 hundred for most automatic pistols in the 9mm range.
Check out your broomhandle. It might be worth some money. Find a site and run the serial number.
You might not need advice, but here it comes anyway. The best place to LOOK for a new pistol is in a pawn shop. You can get the feel of the weapon without a lot of hassle. Don’t buy it there. Go to a gun shop. You might pay a little more, but most gun shops offer discounts on rounds and range time along with your new weapon. You do need to walk into the gun shop with a rough idea of what you are looking for.
Most modern weapons are reliable, if maintained properly. So you need to go with the one that fits your hand the best. I have broad palms and short fingers. So a .45 Colt 1911A doesn’t work for me. I get a better grip on a double stacked magazine. Your milage WILL vary.
Wretchard 27
RE: government “…taking from one pocket to place it in another, more deserving pocket.”
From Machiavelli to Marx, this art has been codified so completely that it is well nigh a science. There is probably a manual that they present to newly elected members of Congress on swearing-in day.
So common has this practice become, the honest man now simply shrugs…as he is unlikely to contemplate revolt unless the event affects him directly. But the Current Occupant has been quite busy of late, affecting folks directly.
Youse guys are in panic mode. Things really suck because Berry and the Marxists ( Coming soon to a Theater near you!) want them too. The first step in selling government as the Saviour is creating something for gobbermint to save us from.
The sales technique is called FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
You establish Fear of something, make your mark uncertain about what is going on then establish doubt that he can handle it on his own.
Then you offer to save him. At this point you should be holding his wallet.
IS Saudi Arabia going broke? Is their economy collapsing? NO? Why not? Is it because they have gobs ( like bunches only more so) of Hydrocarbons? Or is it because they behead Watermelons?
The USA has thousands on times the hydrocarbons as KSA does. Our Watermelons won’t let us get at them. America starts drilling and fracking and within a few years or economy will once again be surging. I would say it would be #1 but we still are #1, despite the doom and gloom boys whining.
I am reminded of all the tax revolts in history. Most of the Peasant ones are put down brutally in the end. The ones that have the middle class involved though can get really nasty for the elite. The left seems to believe in their version of a “Devine Right to Rule”. I can see many of the academics and students ending up as did the Clergy who espoused that thought during the French and Mexican upsets.
I need to order a short solid trigger with an adjustable over travel stop from Brownell’s. The flat mainspring housing and the thin grips help, but the high grip beaver tail puts my finger just a tad to far away for a consistent finger placement.
stoicheion @33: “Ron Paul believes that everybody is good and there are no people out there who need killing. History makes him a fool or a liar. Take your choice.”
I could be wrong but I don’t believe that this is a strictly accurate characterization of Ron Paul.
You will note among the enumerated powers that there is a constitutionally mandated procedure for dealing with bad people in other countries that we feel need killing. If we are going to snuff out their pitiful lives with our consummately capable military men/assets, then we owe those sorry sods the courtesy of an official (as in congressionally declared) war.
Seen that way its a hard position to disagree with. If this nation needs or wants to project military force fine… then let congress “man up” and make it official… and then impeach any CINC that doesn’t get busy making victory happen toute suite! The way the show is running now congress is cowardly abdicating their responsibility.
The cold war with the USSR, it could be argued, was a special case that called for projection of power with out a declared war, but whether one agrees or disagrees that is all over now. (russia may still be dangerous but its no longer dangerous enough to justify abrogating the constitution). IMO There is no longer any valid excuse for NOT declaring war when war is what we need.
decide to do it … get it done … get home in time for dinner.
For me its not about the money.
No declared war=No frame of refrence for obtaining victory
No frame of refrence for obtaining victory=yankees oughta go home.
I’m happy to hear your take on this if you disagree.
I’m sure most folks here have heard, but if you missed it…. the employment numbers tanked again.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/houston-we-have-recoupling-initial-claims-back-over-400000-post-next-weeks-revision-retail-sale
Expect the media to shift this into silent mode after all those weeks of boasting about the “robust job growth” and all that bunkum. No doubt the “labor force participation” number will drop again to smooth out the unemployment number for the suckers to believe in. But it’s going to get harder and harder for The Won to hide this.
Now if only we had some Republicans who knew how to take advantage of it.
rfa @ 31: Think of it this way, If you are growing at a measly 3-5% and you are paying 3-5% interest on your debt. Then ALL GROWTH must be appropriated by the government JUST TO PAY THE INTEREST on the Debt.
ouch.
And that doesn’t even count a 1% or so increase in population per year.
And of course Bernankecare comprises printing another 1% or so per year.
Hard to balance those numbers.
I have a good friend down the street: political conservative, devout Christian, and a “prepper” or survivalist. I enjoy talking to him but our discussions sometimes get stuck on one or two points. He also believes that a turnover in Washington, with American cheap energy are the keys to recovery and renewal. I tell him that when I was in elementary school, gasoline was 15 cents per gallon, and there was no shortage, but that was during the Great Depression. When I was in high school, gas was 20 cents a gallon; the price went up to 25 cents after Nixon was elected, but didn’t really climb until Ford was president. But the oil producers could have pumped more, had they wanted. The problem was inflation: too many dollars. Drilling and fracking will help, but it won’t get rid of 15 trillions of debt.
33. stoicheion
The Browning Hi-Power—still is and always will be.
Good points El Heffe.
Apparently I got banned from the Tatler for asking Bryan Preston how much the Newt and Perry campaigns paid PJM, or why he never spoke out against Ron Paul while Preston was working to re-elect him as part of the Texas Republican Party in the early 2000s.
“As in Russia under Yeltsin, it can be reduced below a sustainable level and catastrophe ensues. (It was more because of bad economic advice from the likes of Saks, rather than the ineptness of Yeltsin.)” It is starting to dawn on even the Glenn Reynolds’ of this world that after the American Gorby (Obama) there will be a Yeltsin (Romney?) under whom things crack up and who gets blamed for it all and then we’ll see an American Putin.
#8 wretchard
The challenge for 2012, it seems to me, is to get someone in the White House who understands what the crisis signifies, and has a modicum of integrity and honesty to deal with it.
You understate the problem. First, the combination that you posit may well not exist in the current candidate pool. Second, if they do exist, they are going to face massive opposition from multiple threat axis’. The Leftist branch of our political class, their media minions, and just as strongly from the Institutional Republicans. I cannot speak to how well the remaining members of the Republican candidate pool fit that combination, with the exception of Romney [of which more later]; but if that person exists and has a chance of ending up in the White House, he is in that group.
Of that group, Willard Mitt Romney is being promoted as the Republican candidate by all three of the major threat axis’. The Left is muting any attacks against him [the long declared front-runner] and concentrating on the purported second tier. The media have laid off of him, or promoted him as the one the Democrats fear; which reprises their role in dealing with McCain. And like with McCain, as soon as the nomination is secured, Romney will become the devil incarnate 24/7 on all media outlets. And the Institutional Republicans are pushing Romney and attacking all other candidates. Barring an unexpected event [which could include a rebellion amongst voters] or an external event that postpones or cancels the elections; Willard Mitt Romney will almost surely be the Republican candidate.
That means that there will not be a change from the current downward path dictated from above. A Romney candidacy means a sure Obama re-election. Romney has never stood and fought Democrats, has adopted Democrat stands on pretty much all issues, and has made a distinct and studied effort to alienate the Republican Conservatives and TEA Party Patriots who carry campaigns with their money and efforts. He will lose, and that loss will not discommode the Institutional Republicans in the slightest.
There have been risks already mentioned with the prospects of a second Obama administration. Among them are the risks of the end of electoral politics as a factor in the country’s future. Just because one form of politics ends, does not mean that another will not take its place. Nor that those means will not match other systems we thought would never come here. Wretchard, being in Australia may be a good thing.
Subotai Bahadur
lc @ 12:
The really great thing about your Hayek selection is how it highlights a very subtle but crucial point about leftism. Hayek was able to deduce that leftism’s engine is built upon the assumption of a supremely rational morality. This is faith in a Final Morality, an ineluctable one towards which Reason will guide Man and his humble planner given enough time and light. This morality is the sunny uplands some call communism that remains the ultimate destination of the Hegelian dialectic that echoes across time.
How odd is it, then, that leftism in pactice these days denies the very existence of moral facts? All meaning to the leftist anymore is purely political, it is contextual, it is subjective, it is relative. The leftist abhors and ridicules the very notion of absolute truth. Absolute truth is what you make it, hand-in-hand with power. It is all will to power with this lot.
What curious creatures, these men of the left. How doggedly they cling to ideas proven disastrous so serially. How so do they fool and blind themselves to all the evidence lying around, about most everything.
Product of a public education (four different cities, in Va and Ca.) I started at an Ivy League school located in a coastal Connecticut city in the fall of 1967.
Several observations in the first years amazed me:
a) When the dining hall laid out a feast – wheels of cheese, bottles of wine, roasts, fruit, etc. – it was the children of captains of industry and finance and high officials of our government, NOT the middle-class or recruited ethnic types from the ghetto or the barrio, who would carve themselves a 2-pound chunk of aged sharp cheddar, multiple slices of beef, then eat a few mouthfuls and abandon the rest on their plates along with half-drunk glasses of merlot and chardonet.
b) T-Shirts celebrating “Black September” and other Arab Muslim Terror groups were worn NOT AT ALL IRONICALLY by radicalized New York City Jewish kids.
c) Clearasil-scented 18 year-olds who had attended the best private schools seemed to see themselves as utterly qualified to discern the innermost thoughts of authors who had lived centuries earlier, despite the vast gulf in experience and expectations resulting from freely available electrical appliances, telephony, tv, air travel, antibiotics, orthopoedic surgery, industrial mass production of consumer products, etc. Clearly they were full of crap, but they couldn’t see it as they parroted borrowed insights into the thoughts of John Donne. Flash was substituted for wisdom, and sadly, many adjunct instructors rewarded that.
Hey, I can see these now as defensive postures of common adolescent immaturity… I hadn’t thought of these things for decades, and of course none of these anecdotes mean these kids went on to do evil. Nor do they mean that I was devoid of ugly behaviors. But the distinctions between the behavior of kids who’d grown up in luxury could NOT be obscured by their relentless costume choice of the raggediest, most torn and frayed jeans and ripped sweatshirts.
The most important thing I learned was that kids who have grown up seeing U.N. or Congressional Reps sitting in their pajamas at the kitchen table with their parents, sipping coffee and munching eggies and toast, have a very different sense of their own options in the world.
A guy who went on to publish a very popular comic strip he’d started as an undergrad came back after a couple of years enrolled in a graphic design program, and ended up in one of my classes. We had lunch one time, and he told me he was a cousin of a former prime minister of our northern neighbor. Attending a private school in D.C., he and a couple of his school chums would regularly sit in the galleries of the U.S. Congress and watch the fun. Then they went home and wrote up trilingual summaries of what they’d observed and went around trying to sell subscriptions of their newsletter to U.S. Congresscritters!
That sort of brass seems to come from a fairly rarified childhood experience. For better or for worse, it helps me make sense of how third and fourth generation offspring of elected officials see themselves as the inheritors of the mantle of leadership, regardless of whether they have the wit and integrity the task demands.
Mercedes’ Dieter Zetsche promoting car-sharing: “Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism,” Mercedes-Benz Chairman of the Board of Management Dieter Zetsche said onstage at CES today, speaking about Mercedes’ new CarTogether initiative. “But if that’s the case, viva la revolucion!”
Straight Arrow@40 — “Drilling and fracking will help, but it won’t get rid of 15 trillions of debt.”
The affects of keeping a lid on the cost of energy will be measured by the increase in activity across all sectors of our economy.
Rod from Aus: The American Debt to Income ratio went way over 100% at the end of WWII. America was able to overcome that debt ratio because it immediately went after the war to a significantly smaller deficit spending regime and was able to grow it’s way out of that debt ratio. So it is not impossible.
There are ample opportunities for growth and cutting the deficit now if only the Progressives, the Media, the Democrat Machine and the Institutional Republican Jackals would get the hell out of the way. The question is not one of means but of will.
However if the Institutionals are successful in nominating Willard it’s probably game over. If both the Pubs in control and Dems see a mandate to push only centralized government as the solution, as Wretchard says, we will drown pretty damn quick under a mountain of new stifling deep crapola excrement of the an newly unleashed all consuming all powerful bureaucracy. A 100% debt ratio will become only be rosy pipe dream of the past.
U @ 48: A 100% debt ratio will become only be rosy pipe dream of the past.
ratio? the systems are broken, ratio does not compute.
Rod from Aus: The American Debt to Income ratio went way over 100% at the end of WWII.
If the Bondholders were US citizens it is possible.because the interest payments are re-invested or spent in the domestic economy. when the bonholders are foriegners is when you are stuffed.
cowboy #44
2 + 2 = 4 except when there is, er, political value added.
Cui bono?
The challenge for 2012, it seems to me, is to get someone in the White House who understands what the crisis signifies, and has a modicum of integrity and honesty to deal with it.
People like Obama don’t understand 3 key things about markets:
1. Markets are a fundamental part of the human condition. Wherever there are people there is a market. Even in places, like the Soviet Union, where markets were outlawed, they still survived. The human propensity to trade is indestructible.
2. Markets are peoples’ apparent genetic disposition to cooperate. markets are not competitive they are the mechanism by which buyers and sellers cooperate to
exchange goods for the betterment of both parties. Market competition, except in times of dire shortage, is usually between businesses who compete for the right to cooperate with customers. It is a voluntary arrangement.
3. Because markets are voluntary they reflect the opportunity for people to freely exercise their property rights and free choice. Wherever markets are limited, so is freedom. Forces that override the cooperative freedom of the market is an expression of coercion. Coercion invairably creates competition between the will of those with power against the interests of those who would exercise their property rights differently. You can’t be free without property rights and the ability to freely exercise those property rights.
Obama, is at heart an anti market fundamentalist. That means he wants to force us to do what he wants us to do. That is his will is in direct competition with property holders. The only way she can do this is through coercion – by applying the power of the state against the individual.
What such people totally overlook is the role of the State in the world’s current economic problems. Through coercive political competition the state forced US banks to make sub prime loans
stoicheion (33)
May I politely disagree? Far better is a range with a good rental inventory. That way you not only get to handle the prospects, but actually fire them.
El_Heffe (37),
Agreed! But which recent endeavor, other than Libya, lacked that?
C’H @11
“76 years old, no teleprompter, no script, no handlers, just the truth.”
Having observed the behavior with aging parents, Ron Paul is also a candidate for an assisted living home.
C’H, since you have rejected our country, why are you so concerned with our well being?
@33. stoicheion
When I said “worse than the Nork military” I meant that in the sense of being more responsible for empowering our nouveau aristocracy and maintaining the status-quo around the world. You wrote:
“The MIC is like a runaway horse. You don’t whip out you pistol and shoot it in the back of the head”
You do shoot it in the back of the head if it is threatening to trample your children and grandchildren. But Ron Paul doesn’t want to shoot it, he wants to do exactly as you say, grab one rein, pull hard, and harness all that muscle to fulfill its constitutional mandate and nothing more.
@37. El_Heffe
“For me its not about the money.” That would be fine for me too if the Military showed even a modicum of consideration for those who are paying its salaries. As we have seen with gerrymandered weapons systems, platinum plated weapons systems, revolving doors, abandonment of valuable equipment and much more, the MIC is like stoicheion’s run away horse, but in a kindergarten.
@54. Deano41
“since you have rejected our country, why are you so concerned with our well being?”
I have not rejected the country, I have thrown off my slave-chains to the federal government. I still consider myself a citizen of Colorado where I was born, and I expect that within the next decade Colorado will have thrown off its Federal slave-chains too.
As for my concern, my two children are still wearing their slave-chains. I recently had a discussion with my son and asked him about acquiring US citizenship for my grandson. My son says that he wants to drop his citizenship too. I asked him to wait until he had taken his family to the US. The waiting list is already approaching 2 years for an expatriation appointment in Bern anyway, and by the time he gets there they will have raised the price of expatriation from $400 to over $1000.
My guess is that not only haven’t you a clue as to the burdens that the federal government places on expats, but that you could care less about them. That’s pure unadulterated patriotism, my country right or wrong. You are wearing the blinders that the federal government has put on you with their propaganda in order to prevent you becoming a runaway horse outside of their control.
Even Subotai said it on this thread: “Wretchard, being in Australia may be a good thing” but Subotai probably doesn’t realize that even if Wrechard was in Australia it wouldn’t do him any good if he was still wearing the federal government’s slave chains.
48. Unsk
Your premise is counter-factual: the US Government immediately began Financial Repression… and with Bretton Woods began exporting American taxation.
THAT’S how WWII was financially rolled over.
War Bonds = Financially Repressed long term savings.
You will recall War Bond drives….
———
50. rod from Aus
The Bretton Woods system REQUIRES the rest of the world to buy, and buy, and buy, and buy, and… American sovereign debt.
What trips a sovereign borrower up is a flood of redemptions — in alien currencies.
This is what has blown up Hungary and the Baltic states. Debt & FX adversity, it’s a killer, every time.
Kirk Parker @53: “Agreed! But which recent endeavor, other than Libya, lacked that?”
Either you don’t really agree or you are not paying attention.
The list is actually longer than you’d think. The first things that come to mind are Germany (we have troops there but there is no war), Korea (technically its still a war but we arent trying to win), the Abottabad operation and the other misc. drone crap in Pakistan & Yemen (that Awlaki thing was a bad deal on several levels).
And I don’t consider an AUMF the same as a declaration of war. Declared wars have as their objective the destrction of states (or stateless entities as the case may be). An AUMF says to the exectuive “you can go make a mess in another country for as long as you feel like it, or until you dont feel like it any more… which ever comes first.” For instance if the gulf war in ’91 had been a declared war we would have taken Saddam out back then and not gotten tangeld up in 10 years of UN no-fly zone crap.