How much would you pay someone not to do something? How much would you pay somebody to go away? In one of today’s Drudge links there’s a picture of President Obama touring the Boeing plant in South Carolina that he had tried to close.
President Obama rallied with union workers at a Boeing plant in Washington, but he praised the manufacturing conducted by Boeing in South Carolina, even though his National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tried to close the South Carolina plant at the behest of the Washington union workers.
“So this company is a great example of what American manufacturing can do in a way that nobody else in the world can do it,” Obama told the assembled workers this afternoon at the Everett, Wash., Boeing plant …
AdvertisementThe NLRB dropped the complaint in December after Boeing signed a new contract with the machinists
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein argued that the NLRB “helped unions shake down Boeing” by pushing the complaint, which would have cost over 1,000 non-union jobs in South Carolina, until the union received the new contract.
A paper in economics describes the difference between racketeering and government.
“Someone who produces both the danger and, at a price, the shield against it is a racketeer. Someone who provides a needed shield but has little control over the danger’s appearance qualifies as a legitimate protector, …”
In this note we discuss a third case where all violent entrepreneurs are drawn from the same pool. There is a division of labor between those who use violence and those who protect against violence and each entrepreneur chooses the activity that is most profitable.
Someone in the previous thread expressed astonishment that “public policy” should be a career. It’s not just a career, it’s a gold mine, properly approached.
One of the interesting things about the American economy, perhaps the world economy, is how it keeps trying to grow in spite of all attempts to beat it down. The Keystone pipeline and the NLRB decision are testaments, in a sad sort of way, to the vigor of the American economy. It is like rooting for the caterpillar even while it is being devoured alive by parasitic wasps. Though clearly doomed, you can’t help but but admire the critter’s spunk.
Why so many extortionists? Because it is at present more profitable to be a racketeer than to be an entrepreneur. It makes more economic sense to invent some scam like Global Warming and then wait to be paid to go away than it is to frack for oil.
Some countries overseas are in the contrary position. While there is corruption in China, it is more lucrative right now to attract an American industry there than it is to shake it down. Hence, they let it in; and the consequence is that industries are exported and outsourced to China, fundamentally in line with economic incentives.
The structural problem with the American economy is that it is all too often more lucrative to shake industry down than to run it for profit. This habit developed in the fat days. But as the parasites run down the country, the equation will shift as the more and more buzzards compete for fewer and fewer carcasses. Pretty soon it becomes profitable to make something again, but only after things have hit the bottom and people become impoverished.
What makes it cheap to run protection is the political system and its handmaidens, political correctness and humbug. Without them people who produce negative value, guys like Jesse Jackson or the Greenies, would have fewer opportunities to be “important” or “leaders”.
Right now, selling bureaucratic protection is a land office business. Therefore it attracts the underemployed members of the minor aristocracy who see in it a potential source of income. What they fail to understand is that in the long run it cuts their throats too. The solution, it would seem, is to find ways to raise the costs in the extortion business so that it once again becomes better to make something than to sniff around for a rent-seeking opportunity. It is either that or wait for Darwin to work his cruel ways and pick up from the bottom.
When it was revealed that the food police hired to protect kids from turkey sandwiches packed by mom were funded from the Stimulus, I remarked that all command societies reach the point of diminishing returns, where the cost of each additional control rises not linearly, but but exponentially. The bureaucrats, like packets in a bad network, start to collide. Soon you will need police to watch the turkey sandwich police.
The Economist has a story about regulation in America. It says, “the home of laissez-faire is being suffocated by excessive and badly written regulation”.
A Florida law requires vending-machine labels to urge the public to file a report if the label is not there. The Federal Railroad Administration insists that all trains must be painted with an “F” at the front, so you can tell which end is which. Bureaucratic busybodies in Bethesda, Maryland, have shut down children’s lemonade stands because the enterprising young moppets did not have trading licences. The list goes hilariously on.
But red tape in America is no laughing matter. The problem is not the rules that are self-evidently absurd. It is the ones that sound reasonable on their own but impose a huge burden collectively …
Consider the Dodd-Frank law of 2010. Its aim was noble: to prevent another financial crisis. Its strategy was sensible, too: improve transparency, stop banks from taking excessive risks, prevent abusive financial practices and end “too big to fail” by authorising regulators to seize any big, tottering financial firm and wind it down. This newspaper supported these goals at the time, and we still do. But Dodd-Frank is far too complex, and becoming more so. At 848 pages, it is 23 times longer than Glass-Steagall, the reform that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929. Worse, every other page demands that regulators fill in further detail. Some of these clarifications are hundreds of pages long. Just one bit, the “Volcker rule”, which aims to curb risky proprietary trading by banks, includes 383 questions that break down into 1,420 subquestions.
But it is worse than that. As the Corzine incident showed, financial reform created a thicket in which new snakes could breed. It was crafted to exploit a loophole. As Richard Levick at Forbes writes, that leaves things right back where they started.
So we’re back to Square One in the great policy debate: “we must have new laws and tougher laws” versus “we must let the marketplace self-correct and be wary of the unintended consequences of legislating correctives that don’t even correct.”
Undoubtedly the Liberals will say that the only problem with Dodd-Frank was that it was only 23 times longer than Glass-Seagall, clearly inadequate. Like the stimulus it has to be as big as a bazooka to work. Why not make it 230 times longer? Or 2,300 times longer — if that’s what it takes.
But at some point the diminishing returns kick in. Just how many hours will an attorney charge just to see if you are in basic compliance? And will it guarantee no more loopholes?
It’s a game you can’t win. And sooner or later, as night follows day, the system will complexify itself to death. There isn’t enough free energy on earth to regulate everything to the degree that statists think they should be regulated. But they’re going to try. Before the end, they are sure going to try.
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Only the best “leaders” backed by the media can successfully claim today that which they tried to thwart yesterday. POTUS also claimed he should receive a “gold watch”…we should all strive to provide him with one or two to be delivered this fall.
The problem is
1/ We have too many lawyers–
2/ The trial lawyers lobby has a strangle hold on Congress
2/ We have a biased civil litigation system
–eg
-in the UK if you lose a civil litigation then you have to pay both the defense costs and court costs–thus they have very little legal shakedown and blackmail in the UK–lawyer who try it face jail time-just like any other blackmailer
So for shakedown artist it is a treasure hunt–no down side — except time–and potentially huge upside when you get 40-50% of the settlement.
US companies do the math about the potential costs and give in into Jesse Jackson’s and Al Sharpton’s blackmail/shakedown scams.
One more thing: the government’s power to sue, even in ridiculous causes, is a huge deterrent to doing business here. Remember: if you end up in a fight with the government, you lose no matter what the outcome. If you lose the case you end up with a huge fine and/or jail. If you win, you get the government smirking at you saying, “thanks for playing–at least you don’t have to go to jail.” Then you get to pay your own legal fees. Those are often bankruptingly high.
We should definitely have “loser pays” for EVERY government lawsuit because until we do, anyone who runs afoul of leviathan is going to get seriously hurt whether they deserve to be or not. Given my experience of civil servants, as a ten-year veteran of the fedgov I am be greatly in favor of much stronger constraints on fedgov actions and much higher penalties for malfeasance.
Ridicule is a tool we should apply liberally.
His watch is waiting.
We all can draw up dream lists of Constitutional reforms. Some are so strident in calling for changes that it is possible to wonder how much they like the nation and the Constitution that many of us have sworn an oath to defend. My short list includes repeal of the XVIIth Amendment and;
I think it is fair to say all the regulations promulgated to create transparency have done nothing but make things murkier. Good & just people don’t need regulations and no regulations are going to deter snakes.
I suppose some regulations can serve as guides such as buoys are put out to outline the channel, but they only serve to guide the ignorant and not to deter the wicked. In fact, the attempt to deter the wicked then limits the just, maybe I grew up on that stretch of river and know where the shoals are.
Yeah, it seems among the progressive set, the only worthy jobs are those of governance. For example, here in WI we all know what has been going on with the Public Unions, but the latest iteration of this is there is serious interest in iron mining in the Northwest of WI and of course, “the progressives” oppose this.
I was just up in that part of the country and the towns that are there are ghost towns. Reminds me of the books I read by James Clavell, how the samurai were of course the rulers in Japan and how they detested the businessmen, the farmers, the producers. Reminds me of the progs.
It’s not only more profitable to be a racketeer now, it’s a lot easier. Obama likes to jabber about manufacturing jobs, but try building a factory. Better yet, try building an oil refinery. Even Obama’s favorite fantasy, the bullet train to nowhere, will likely be years in the permitting process before a single spade of ground is turned.
But how hard is it to protest “inequality” at a bank or “destroying the environment” at an industrial facility? How long does it take to get the permits needed to form a new advocacy group?
And if you’re someone with capital to invest, why would you do battle with these forces to earn an above-average return which Obama and his class warrior street theatre will declaim as “greed” and demand be taxed away? Better to earn a risk and tax free return in munis. In Obama’s America today, it’s just not worth the trouble to do otherwise.
4/4 on the previous thread, from now on ya’ll will only have THAT Victor to kick around
BINGO! Mr. Fernandez has produced the clearest brighest description ever of Chicago politics, in less than two pages.
Dodd/Frank is behaving exactly as intended. It was designed as a barrier to entry. Great payback to Dodd’s pals.
There is absolutely no solution through the legal or governmental systems- these are the problems themselves. There is no appealing to the sainted Constitution the Tea Party appeals to- it authorizes the whole thing. The only real solution is to leave the country. If you have to stay here, as most do, live off the grid to the extent you can. The damn thing won’t ever die properly. It can be killed, but no one will ever muster the gumption to do that.
No…he was here at the main (unionized) wide-body plant in Everett (Washington), not SC. Had a big fundraiser at Jeff Brotman’s (Costco Chairman) too. Doesn’t detract from the point, but just to be factually correct.
“Friends would you like to get the federal money available for “alternative energy” but are worried that since the wind turbines and solar panels are losing favor now that it is too late? Well for just $39.95 for shipping and handling I will send you my free book on how to get grants from both the EPA and HHS and local school boards for a new energy source. This new energy source is everywhere, and I’ll give away the first secret right now. It is children. Schools have a problem with over active children. Recess to let them run them selves ragged is regarded as too dangerous as the children might hurt each other, and the use of drugs to slow them down is coming under increasing attack. So the Exercise Wheeeel!(tm) connected to a generator is the answer. In the book the incentives for the child to run its wheel will be discussed. The use of different size wheels for different size children will be covered, and host of other subjects such as how to sell it as a cure for obesity. So act now!
This offer is not available at books stores, online, or other sources.”
For the last 10 years I have worked at the bank on several multi-million Franc IT projects. Every single one of them was directly compliance or compliance driven. Here is a list:
- Sarbanes Oxely compliance
- Name Checking (using factiva and bank internal databases)
- AML (Anti Money Laundering)
- Legal Tracking System
- Business Continuity
- Funds Wizard
- Business Compliance Rule Engine
Each of the projects had large teams from different departments and each diverted management attention from other key business issues. Testing and SOX compliance alone is larger than most project teams at a web development shop.
And in each of these projects, in the background, were US lawyers, because each of these projects was mostly about compliance to US law. In Zurich there are hundreds of US lawyers charging upwards of a thousand Francs an hour and getting full TDY, all working on US compliance. A friend of mine got a real cushy position as head of a team doing email forensics. They work closely with the US lawyers plowing through emails for evidence in US court cases like the IRS tax shakedown, Sub-prime, Libor and various other cases.
Bank of America is going to go broke sooner or later, and the reason is the court costs. They are stuck under a mountain of legal litigation and should be broken up ASAP before the lawyers finish picking the bones.
Santorum’s wife just won a $500K case against her chiropractor (she was awarded $350k).
Today’s action plan for Regime Changes in the good Ol’ US of A!
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8952/873899
Take a virtual tour of the neighborhood. EMD’s engine plant is at 9301 W 55th ST
http://tinyurl.com/6rmnng7
Don’t like what you see? How about the oid Pullman Works as in Pullman cars?
http://tinyurl.com/8yhs98l
11. Soviet of Washington: No…he was here at the main (unionized) wide-body plant in Everett (Washington), not SC. Had a big fundraiser at Jeff Brotman’s (Costco Chairman) too. Doesn’t detract from the point, but just to be factually correct.
The President praised Boeing as a success story, and said even if America can’t make lead-painted Wal-Mart plastic dinner plates cheaper and faster than China can, we can make airplanes better than China can. Which is a good point, actually.
Charles Murry’s new book is making the rounds.
“Murray, by the way, is the author of Losing Ground, the book generally credited with sparking welfare reform in the United States, and The Bell Curve, the book that generated a national debate on the role of IQ in our society. When he speaks, people on both the right and the left tend to listen. His latest book, Coming Apart, is another block buster.”
“Just so you don’t think what Murray is describing is all about race or about immigrants, the entire analysis in it is focused on non-Hispanic whites. Within the white population a cultural cataclysm is underway. One part of that population (about 20% of the total) is firmly attached to traditional values. The other part (about 30% of the total) is undergoing cultural disintegration.
In 1960, these two groups of people lived similar lives. Today, they are headed in opposite directions.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/johncgoodman/2012/02/18/are_we_coming_apart
Wasp @ 16: “we can make airplanes better than China can”
Unfortunately — technically, today we can assemble foreign-made parts into airplanes better than China.
FedGov applauded while Lockheed, Douglas, McDonnell got out the airplane business. Who needs those dirty jobs and those silly tax revenues anyway? Only thirty years ago, most commercial aviation world-wide used American-made planes. Look today at any airport — a sea of Airbuses, Embraers, Canadian Regional Jets.
FedGov has almost strangled the Golden Goose with all its red tape. The EUnuchs may be foolish in many regards, but they will defend Airbus to the death. And the Chinese are looking out for their own interests too — with a clear understanding that industrial output underpins everything else they want to achieve.
An Ocean of Data: The New Way to Find Sunken Treasure
Feature
Can Brendan Foley and an army of shipwreck-seeking robots transform maritime archaeology?
By Brooke Borel
As much as Foley likes discovering shipwrecks—he’s found or helped find 26 in the past 14 years—he doesn’t much like spending time looking for them, at least not in the conventional ways. Rather than sending dive teams down to survey 1,000-foot transects one fin kick at a time, Foley prefers to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to survey huge tracts of seafloor. Where the robots don’t work well, Foley sends down divers armed with closed-circuit rebreathers and thrusters, allowing them to cover more ground. He wants to go faster, he says, because he needs a lot more information. Maritime archaeologists can spend years on just a few sites, but for Foley’s purposes, a solitary wreck is statistically weak—nothing more than a few words from a greater conversation. To understand the entire conversation, maritime archaeologists must study many wrecks and identify patterns between them. Foley’s model is not the soft science of digging and interpretation, but the hard science of high-throughput screening deployed by gene and drug researchers, who gather data at an industrial rate and analyze that data with powerful computers able to detect subtle patterns beyond the reach of ordinary analysis.
If Foley can determine where hundreds or even thousands of ancient ships were headed, when they were headed there, and what they were carrying, he could use computer analysis to trace the origin of the world’s earliest cultures, and in so doing he could test his central hypothesis: that it was seaborne trade that enabled the spread of civilization in the Mediterranean Basin. But to do all of that on a computer, he first wants to “map, in exquisite detail, the entire seafloor of the Mediterranean,” a sea that covers nearly a million square miles and may contain as many as 300,000 wrecks.
James Harper, a Colorado student who refused to sing a song prasing Allah quit the choir and then quit school in Grand Junction after receiving death threats. He received more death threats after the story broke this week.
Religion of peace, you know.
If I was that kid and got a death threat, my reply would be, “When you come over, better wear body armor.”
That would be the only warning they get. Next would be three disabling rounds, center of mass.
If he had refused to sing the National Anthem, Media Matters would have praised him to the rafters.
Naw, the kid likely had other issues, American Muslims are moderate.
Like the one they arrested two blocks from the Capitol with a suicide vest. Moderate American Muslim.
How much would you pay somebody to go away?
Like the gypsy violinist at the restaurant who comes to your table and won’t leave until you pay him?
It’s all in “Atlas Shrugged”, Dr. Ferris from the State Institute is talking conspiratorially with Hank Rearden and explains that of course nobody can really work within all those federal laws, THAT’S WHAT THEY ARE THERE FOR, to extort cooperation, payment, and complicity.
I’m not sure I have an answer. Rand didn’t, she just had everyone drop out. I’m a little more optimistic than that, but what is needed is a story, and it needs to be a better story than the Republican love of laissez-faire. “Compassionate Conservativism” is probably on the right track. Even Mitt Romney, stepping on his own tongue, may be (fuzzily) thinking along the right lines, a stronger safety net for those who need it – or want it. Less regulation for the mass of working people and small businesses, that is, more freedom, more appreciation. Government enforcement against criminals and rent-seekers, including banksters. The difficult and unfortunate part is where we do need government for natural monopolies, from the post office to the highway department, the EPA and OSHA, SEC and the Fed. Any institution is subject to capture and hijack until it becomes a criminal enterprise itself. The Los Angeles school system may be an example of that, they spend their time teaching political correctness and condom use, and dodging gunfire, not to mention some really disgusting abuse stories recently. But maybe breaking it up and privatizing it, as is usually the conservative response, is not the answer, maybe it has to be taken head-on and fixed? I don’t know. I’m certainly meandering at this point.
Our government has learned this trick: take a balanced budget. Now suck out another 1% for rent-seeking, waste and payoffs. Go back to the voter and plead poverty, raise taxes 1% “for the kids”. Rinse and repeat, endlessly. “But I already paid for that!” the taxpayer cries – or should cry. “Oh, but the kids!” point out the bleeding hearts. That’s just difficult, politically, which doesn’t always work rationally. But rational or irrational, the answer is to find a scapegoat. The real villain being the optimal scapegoat, whoever has actually made off with that 1%, or the other 1%, or the other 1%, etc. But typically that gets into complex arguments and bookkeeping, and the modern MSM is too attention-deficit, and just plain incompetent and dishonest, to tell the story.
Well, every problem is an opportunity, and this particular opportunity is getting plenty big for someone.
@21: The difficult and unfortunate part is where we do need government for natural monopolies…
Not so analytically intractable, but tough to implement. Stoi nailed it awhile back with a 3-part reform – randomly select committee chairs, make lobbying for money illegal, and physically move Washington out of Washington. I also support the effort by L3′s group to remove egregiously corrupt incumbents, if that’s not too lace doily a description.
This somber Chicken Little stuff is inappropriate and unworthy. I like the Stoi/L3 approach because it recognizes the dominance of the human problem over the institutional problem (in this country, not so much in EUrope, China, Russia where current paradigms remain starkly different, and with the caveat that government power stateside can and should ‘shift’ to lower levels, the operative criterion being rebalance.) It is one thing to ‘hate government.’ It is a sign of maturity to understand that we are human and government is necessary.
Well, every problem is an opportunity, and this particular opportunity is getting plenty big for someone.
Which is the very scary part. Of the three options, (1) a minimalist Libertarian government, (2) a traditional conservative government run by a designated class of elites or some form of monarchy (ref Matt’s writing), or (3) a progressive government of the people, by the people and for the people, my guess is that many if not most Americans cluster around door no. 3, with various forms of clean-up attached to put some sort of lid on the corruption.
The Economist article ends with progressive themes:
America needs a smarter approach to regulation. First, all important rules should be subjected to cost-benefit analysis by an independent watchdog. The results should be made public before the rule is enacted. All big regulations should also come with sunset clauses, so that they expire after, say, ten years unless Congress explicitly re-authorises them.
More important, rules need to be much simpler. When regulators try to write an all-purpose instruction manual, the truly important dos and don’ts are lost in an ocean of verbiage. Far better to lay down broad goals and prescribe only what is strictly necessary to achieve them. Legislators should pass simple rules, and leave regulators to enforce them.
Would this hand too much power to unelected bureaucrats? Not if they are made more accountable. Unreasonable judgments should be subject to swift appeal. Regulators who make bad decisions should be easily sackable.
…
RE: MFG and Corzine
I go with Charlie Gasparino’s take, which is pure Shakespearean drama of one man’s hubris and denial cleverly masked by a charming personality. On grumpier days, I wonder about Ann Barnhardt’s belief that Wall St was going after the CME.
Thras :”There is absolutely no solution through the legal or governmental systems- these are the problems themselves. There is no appealing to the sainted Constitution the Tea Party appeals to- it authorizes the whole thing”
I would argue that the Constitution does not permit this government racketeering scam in no uncertain terms.
The Fifth Amendment ( and the Fourteenth) declares that “no person shall be….deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Justice Ginsburg and Buraq Hussein would I guess argue these “negative rights’ meaning, those rights restricting government taking Life, Liberty and Property, can be obliterated upon the flimsiest of excuses. These Progressives have taken the “General Welfare Clause” and have tried to ram through a whole set of ‘positive” rights to regulate anyone, anywhere, anytime to any extent. The General Welfare Clause:
Under Article 1, Section 8 states: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
But at the time of Constitution it was plain that those Ginsburgian positive rights were just not there. From “Reason to
Freedom” : the plain meaning was
“no local interests could be provided aid from the new federal government. The welfare concerned the wholesomeness of the Union, the federal level, the matter of binding the states together for mutual benefit, the health of the arrangement of the separated powers, the federalist structure, not the well-being of groups or individuals, whether travelers, farmers, manufacturers, shop-keepers, freight-haulers or consumers, etc. The strongest reading would be that the benefit of this “general welfare” had to be a benefit for all rather than some people, without it being a direct benefit to every individual. It seems it had to be limited to “public use” in the sense of the Fifth Amendment.”
Forgetting for the moment that there seems to a clear lack of intention by the Founders that the “General Welfare’ clause was to be used to justify unbridled regulation and takings of Life, Liberty and Property, if one is using this clause to promote the “General Welfare”, shouldn’t such acts of regulation actually in fact by reasonably unbiased analysis actually do the trick of promoting the General Welfare?
Clearly, Buraq’s Pay to Play Chicago Machine Style racketeering initiatives, legislative mandates and executive orders taken as a whole, not just on their stated PR purpose, do not in any unbiased way promote the General Welfare. In fact, anyone other than a deranged Lefty can see that this racketeering is actually destroying rather than promoting the General Welfare.
As I have said before, if we are to have this regulatory beast in our lives at all, to justify the “due process of the law”, these regulatory takings of Life, Liberty and Property need to be subjected to a strictly unbiased, reality based, cost/benefit – risk/reward analysis that overwhelmingly proves that such regulatory takings actually promote the general welfare. Otherwise, such regulatory takings are illegitimate, and should be prosecuted as a crime and an unlawful taking of our constitutional rights.
Therefore, from different angles and points of view, Buraq’s Chicago Machine Style Racketeering is unconstitutional, illegal and in no way supported in the law.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Here is another example. The feds subsidize windmills and wind farms. Those things are getting so common that some species of birds, including golden eagles are in decline as a result (yes they are killed by the turbines). And the windmills make no economic sense. And the companies profiting? Friends of Obama. But not everyone has to sacrifice…
Balance and judgment are important.
Just a reminder.
Ms Barnhardt appears to be following the Palin Path.
Wretchard: A paper in economics describes the difference between racketeering and government.
It’s all about scale.
One man holding you up is a robber.
Ten men holding up a bank is a gang.
One hundred men shaking down Little Italy is a mob.
Ten thousand men shaking down the nation is the Internal Revenue “Service”.
And 250,000 Wall St bankers spinning the roulette wheel is the 50-year Toga Party.
“It is like rooting for the caterpillar even while it is being devoured alive by parasitic wasps. Though clearly doomed, you can’t help but but admire the critter’s spunk.”
That’s it, in a nutshell, Wretchard. The U.S. is currently under attack by parasites. When the host begins to die, it then becomes predation.
Ok, Obama’s on his west coast fund raising swing. Yes, Seattle is one of the Boeing union strangled manufacturing sites. I just think he was doing some fundemental Chicago politics. Here I am being welcomed by the very same company I shook down with NLRB lawsuit. Let that be an example to all of the rest of you out there. Play by my rules and I’ll let you survive (and you’ll be happy to lick my boots). Cross me, and I’ll shut you down.
We aren’t currently under attack by parasites, we HAVE been under attack since the first progressive president, the sainted Teddy Roosevelt. Socialism is about empowering the non-producers to become parasites with the help of politican enablers. We are simply at the end of a very long 110 yr. attack by the dark forces of stateism.
I personally am ready to gather up pitchforks and rope and search out lamp posts to reduce the population count of moon bat greens and all the other idiot parasites in this culture. I have seen a lot of the rest of the world and we ARE special and we need to not follow France down to socialist hell.
An addendum to Murry’s book
…………………
MOST BIRTHS AMONG THOSE UNDER 30 ARE TO UNWED MOMS
Fastest growth in past 20 years is among white women in their 20s
It used to be called illegitimacy. Now it is the new normal. After steadily rising for five decades, the share of children born to unmarried women has crossed a threshold: More than half of births to U.S. women younger than 30 occur outside marriage.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/18/tp-most-births-among-those-under-30-are-to-unwed/
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language……”
Socialism isn’t about economics. That’s a ruse. Socialism is about creating a certain moral order, first and foremost. The fervent socialist is one permanently, excitedly engaged in upending the prevailing social norms. That is why our betters cannot pass a budget but they can usher in gays in the military. They cannot set the conditions for fuller employment, but they can pick a fight with Catholic priests. The hottest issue in Maryland and New Jersey right now is gay marriage. The hottest issue on the national scene is, incredibly, contraception. In these days of out of control public spending the only solution they provide is to soak the undeserving rich – a morality play.
Forget all those old definitions you were taught about what defines communism, socialism, and so forth when they told you it all boiled down to who owns the means of production. By the time you even understood those terms you’d been led into a bog, then they shot a random flare out for you to follow.
Socialism means a social revolution. It aims to upend traditional human society and to empower itself and its adherents as strongmen. If economics ever figure into the equation it is only to extent that economics can be made of service to the greater goal.
The socialist means to control you. Pure and simple, and obvious for over 200 years now.
It is incredible that they’ve stretched their con game out as long as they have. This has only been made possible because they are masters at shaping their campaigns in a way that exploits the weaknesses of human character.
Two major changes required, 1. re-regulate the banks, wall street and large regionals have no retail business[let them screw with large corporations]. Local banks only retail customers to handle car and home loans for the life of the loans.
Education dept closed, becomes state and local control only. Money that is used to run Education Dept used to reduce personnel taxes.
Richard #34:
“Re-regulate the banks,…”
The banks were never “deregulated” but rather, the Community Reinvestment Act that was the source of so much of the financial meltdown was an additional, and severe, regulation on the banking industry that required that they make bad loans – under threat of prosecution (said Janet Reno) as well as a necessity when it came to getting Federal approval for new business moves (more regulation at work). Even then, it would not have been so bad if Fannie and Freddie had not propped it all up.
“Local banks only retail customers to handle car and home loans for the life of the loans.”
During the Great Depression there was a law in effect that banks could not have branch offices. Small local banks did not want to have to compete with the big ones. That left the small banks with a poor and limited customer base, and led to many of them failing when local businesses were hurt by the Depression. Canada had no such law and had no bank failures during the Depression.
We have a government of Bernie Madoffs that aid, abet, encourage, and even require similar criminal actions in the private sector.
Alternate Plan: Toss the miscreants that caused this, Federal, Congressional, and Private, in jail for 20 plus years and seize all of their assets.
Josh@21 – “what is needed is a story, and it needs to be a better story than the Republican love of laissez-faire”
The system that you describe relies on laissez-faire. As an underlying principle it seeks to disentangle the corrupt interests of the state from the market place and replace public largesse on the “excess” side of the public/private firewall. When largesse drives society then the means to support it is throttled and starved off. ‘Suddenly’ the overhead of government is too high to pay. The public dole needs to come after commerce and not have first count and first priority for the state entity. Also, what you nearly allude to but miss is that these agencies must not have a monopoly, a cost center and purpose that puts them at fundamental odds with commerce. The way to ensure this, amongst other things, is to have a system of checks and balances. If there is a need for a new agency, it should be one along the line of the constitutional protection and seek to limit the harm regulatory agencies might cause to the private sector as in the case of the EPA and global warming. What is to balance the interests of the small businessman against OSHA for example? K Street lobbies? Nothing. Governments sole role is to inhibit commerce and that in itself is unconstitutional. Checks and balances my man, checks and balances. Laissez-faire ensures it.
I have a close friend that is a financial officer at a major private equity fund. I asked how he was complying with Dodd/Frank. “I can’t comply with Dodd/Frank. The only way I can protect myself and the firm is to continually and massively show “due dilligence.” The law and the application of the law is too complex for actual compliance.
am @ 36: The system that you describe relies on laissez-faire.
I think the underlying system is best referred to as “capitalism”, of which the least encumbered variety is laissez-faire. Even a national system of currency moves away from pure LF, systems with patents, transaction taxes, standardized weights and measures, arguably even contracts and courts of (civil) law are arguably not “pure”.
It’s odd, now that you mention it. We are probably MORE regimented along many of these dimensions than are the (putatively socialist) Chinese, and yet it is many of these areas, especially related to intellectual property rights, that are strengths of ours against the Chinese, their absence is holding China back (thank goodness!?!?). Even a halfway-fair adversarial court, is better than an unaccountable government bureaucrat!
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e @ 37: I can’t comply with Dodd/Frank
What precisely can he not comply with, I wonder. I don’t doubt it, I’d just like to know more about it.
STOP THE PRESSES, THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN HAS FOUND ITS NEW CAMPAIGN SLOGAN!
STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES!
Governments apply pressure. That’s what they do, by default, if not by definition. It is very hard, some say impossible, to design, build, and maintain a functional mix of institutions that keep the power game in play while balancing the demands of competing objectives and world views. Books, civilizations and histories have been written on the subject.
In the interest of brevity, another view, from Brookings (known for its centrist reputation):
Just as one can look back with considerable awe at what the federal government tried to accomplish over the past half century, so, too, can one look forward with considerable doubt about whether government will ever be so bold again. Are the nation’s leaders so worried about losing their jobs that they will not take the risks embedded in the kind of inherently risky projects that reached the top ten list above? Are Americans so impatient for success that no program, however well designed and justified, can outlast the early difficulties that face so many innovative efforts? And are the media so addicted to stories of government failure that no endeavor, however noble and well designed, can survive long enough to achieve results?
These questions would not be so troublesome but for the fact that many of the most important problems identified in this report are still in need of solution. The nation has far to go in increasing access to health care, reducing the dangers of nuclear war, improving air and water quality, reducing hunger, and so on. To the extent that the nation’s leaders avoid the risky issues in favor of safe rewards, the public demands instant gratification instead of long-term diligence, and the media punishes the trial and error so essential to ultimate impact, the list of government’s greatest achievements of the next half century will be short, indeed.
As a footnote, the anti-government sentiment put an abrupt end to any form of Industrial Policy that would have mitigated the destructive export of the manufacturing base. The finance guys were behind that one too.
…..
In the battle of Big Business vs Big Government: “The direct impact of a Greek default is almost zero,” – Jaime Dimon.
40/GreekQuorum
Brookings is most definitely not centrist, it is liberal-left. Unless you consider liberal to be centrist. Most liberals, it seems to me, do. I don’t.
In the interest of fairness, the obligatory CATO rebuttal.
You pay your money and you choose your seat.
@41: Based on legislative citations, they fall right in the middle @ 53 with CATO rating @ 36 – see tabulation at bottom of link.
Greek Forum @ 40 –
“…the anti-government sentiment put an abrupt end to any form of Industrial Policy that would have mitigated the destructive export of the manufacturing base. The finance guys were behind that one too.”
Where to start? Government “Industrial policy”? Are you nuts??? See Japan Inc.
The finance guys? They are so pliable and lazy that we had decades of financial people saying that a 10% annual compound growth in the Dow was a sure bet. Try telling that to the public pension trustees now!
Companies that make things that do something useful, for example Caterpillar, just keep bulldozing along. But what was the valuation of some of those big industrial stocks during the recent crash, $0.01 per share? We’d be better off using wampum as the “coin” of the realm.
So to save the globe from disaster here is the plan…
Convince the Japanese and German governments to suck it up and re-start their nuclear reactors. That will reduce their demand for oil to generate electricity, which will crash the price of oil, which will crash the price of wheat in Egypt, which will………..
It’s called a “virtuous circle”.
GreekQuorum @ 42 “Based on legislative citations…”
You mean “based on how successful they have been in lobbying for legislation”, legislation that has been killing the productive economy.
They are quite liberal.
QED
mp @ 43: Convince the Japanese and German governments to suck it up and re-start their nuclear reactors. That will reduce their demand for oil to generate electricity, which will crash the price of oil, which will crash the price of wheat in Egypt, which will………
Interesting theory: the west’s green mania is crashing Egypt, and we should instead crash Saudi Arabia – which would arguable be even greener, anyway!
Of course the US should be included in that too, cut way back on our uneconomic use of ethanol.
OTOH, all this should happen in the next year or three anyway due to fracking, unless idiots like Obambus continue to stand in the way. The outlook for one or another part of dar al-Islam is pretty murky in any case.
Greek #40:
“As a footnote, the anti-government sentiment put an abrupt end to any form of Industrial Policy that would have mitigated the destructive export of the manufacturing base.”
“Industrial Policy” is not required to do that. What is required is proper policy relative to environmental, tax (especially!), labor, subsidy, and litigation regulations and laws that recognizes that manufacturing is a desirable industrial entity and not a dangerous nuisance to be run off.
And the trouble is that the people who are in favor of “industrial policy” are the very ones who think all those other regulations are really keen, neato, and a necessity.
“Industrial policy” would as a first step have to fire all the people in favor of the concept itself and replace them with those who think it a bad idea.
“Tell me is that the Democrat administration and its allies entering that building?
Why yes it is Tex. Ah then, have the men fix bayonets and have the bugler sound Deguello.”
Josh @ 45 – Do it right now and Iran loses the most. Japan is one of their few remaining customers. If the Saudi’s pick up the slack for China, Iran has zero customers. A-Jad is toast and China saves face for supporting Assad. That cuts him off too! A twofer!
Two down and Putin left to go! He can’t afford an oil price crash either, nor Chavez in Venezuela. A fourfer!!
I did tell them all that Santa was coming to town and that he was pissed!
@46: What is required is proper policy…
So there is such a thing. Progress!
I disagree with too much of your perspective to get into it. One of the things that worries me is that, left unresolved, the debate over the proper role of government, coupled with the debate over the role of religion in government, specifically the Christian religion, will lead to some form of rule by aristocracy/theocracy described by Matt. I don’t think this country will allow that, at a very fundamental level, but the mere hint of a possibility, as introduced by deep philosophical divides, suggests some form of violent resolution.
If I may, re-frame the conversation in this manner. The Ship of State is in need of attention. The corruption has entered the Red Zone.
There are those who believe that the very concept of a State is inherently dysfunctional and cannot be designed or maintained in any defensible formulation, under any set of objectives or guidelines. It is not an issue of reform, but one of innate instability. That may yet turn out to be true.
I don’t buy it. Before I do, I will demand to see what happens with additional levers of corruption control put in place. Several have been discussed. More are needed.
RE: Industrial Policy – that includes the push for “energy independence” does it not?
The most devastating blow a capitalist can strike against the socialist is to become less productive.
Roughcoat (41),
Heck yeah not centrist! Look at this snippet, for example:
Actually, in fact, almost all easy bits of improving air and water quality have already been done, and gotten us the lion’s share of the benefits. From here on out, it’s chasing diminish returns.
Same with hunger: some problems remain, but you can’t claim with a serious face that insufficient calories is a problem in a nation where obesity is one of the big health problems of the poor.