Wires Crossed
Guy Sorman at the City Journal looks at the question of restoring economic confidence. Reviewing Paul Krugman’s book End This Depression Now!, Sorman examine the Nobel Prize winning economist’s — now turned pundit — argument that confidence can be restored by injecting a stimulus of government spending into the economy. Such a jolt would send a signal to producers and consumers: happy days are here again. Since the only thing to fear is fear itself, once the pump was primed the mechanism would keep on going and the economic downturn would be over.
“‘Ending the depression should be incredibly easy,’ Krugman asserts. The government must simply spend more, because the American consumer is spending less. Borrowing from Keynes, Krugman argues that the crisis, having been provoked by a decline in private demand, can only be solved by an increase in public demand.” The maneuver crucially depended on sending a signal to the market to both produce and consume.
But what if, Sorman asks, the market does not receive the signal as intended? Suppose that instead of stimulating production and demand the Keynesian spending had the opposite effect? Nonsense, Krugman says. The trick aways works.
This inflationary solution, which Krugman calls “a feel-good experience,” has been tried before. It worked, he claims, during World War II, when arms-building programs lifted the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression. Half-jokingly, Krugman says that the threat of an alien invasion should suffice to motivate more government spending.
But the weakest link in Krugman’s argument is the assumption that the economy must interpret the signal in the way that Krugman desires. Why should this necessarily be the case? Sorman says that other distinguished economists have argued that the markets may interpret signals in a different way:
Robert Lucas, the originator of rational-expectation theory, has shown how and why consumers and entrepreneurs reject Keynesian policies: in essence, the marketplace is wiser than the government. Entrepreneurs and consumers alike understand that an increase in public demand is artificial and short-term. Consequently, public demand leads not to increased consumption or investments but to price hikes.
In other words, the market has a mind of its own. Suppose the market observes policymakers taking Krugman’s advice to spend furiously to prepare for an invasion of space aliens. But instead of building factories to manufacture Acme Electro Atomizer Ray Guns and sparking a boom — as Krugman predicts — the public concludes that the administration and all its economic advisers have gone completely insane. Instead of anticipating a boom they cut back on existing activity and withdraw into an economic shell to ride out the storm.
Could such a thing actually happen? Events in the Eurozone would seem to suggest that EU “bailouts”, rather than increasing market confidence, can undermine it.
But let us take a more prosaic example. For instance, the governement signal that unemployed people must be helped to find jobs. In order to advance that laudable goal “in April, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signaled that it would begin to crack down on employers who use the criminal histories of job applicants to discriminate against them illegally.” What a capital idea. But the New York Times noted that not employers were enthusiastic about changing their existing hiring policies.
To judge from conversations with business owners, labor lawyers and human resources consultants, many small businesses had no idea there was anything wrong with practices like a blanket ban on hiring anybody with a criminal record.
Who would ever think such a thing? Especially since as the NYT points out, the ‘anti-discriminatory’ rules have been on the books for ages although they have only recently been the subject of new implementing rules.
The notion that using criminal records in employment decisions could constitute discrimination has been government policy since at least the 1970s. The E.E.O.C. has in the past issued policy statements, called enforcement guidance, about how employers may use criminal records without running afoul of the Civil Rights Act, but in April the agency published new enforcement guidance. …
In its guidance, the commission warns employers not to use arrest records at all in hiring decisions. Because “arrests are not proof of criminal conduct” — they often do not result in charges, and charges often do not lead to convictions — basing a hiring decision on an arrest record is presumptively discriminatory. (An employer can, however, investigate the conduct that led to an arrest and, according to the guidance, “make an employment decision based on the conduct underlying the arrest if the conduct makes the individual unfit for the position in question.”)
The underlying rationale for warning against using criminal records to disqualify a job applicant was apparently to prevent a “disparate impact” on African-Americans, who were often lumbered with a longer rap sheet than applicants of other ethnicity. The new regulations were intended to remove an irrelevant criminal record as a barrier to employment.
But the NYT reporters admitted that businesses were in a genuine dilemma. They were reluctant to hire people with previous run-ins with the law because of the risk they might get sued or investigated by another branch of the government if that employee subsequently did something wrong. It was damned if you did and damned if you didn’t.
Andrea Herran, a human resources consultant in the Chicago area, said that the new procedures would subject small businesses to a legal cross-fire, especially businesses with employees who work in the field. Those companies are potentially liable for the actions of an employee in a client’s home or office.
“It’s almost like you’re being squeezed on both sides of the law,” Ms. Herran said. “If somebody’s making them nervous with their criminal history, and they’re worried about getting sued on the other side, what’s a business owner supposed to do? Most business owners are going to want to play it safe and say, ‘I’m not going to want to give the job to someone with a criminal record.’ ”
One way out of that insoluble contradiction is for even small businesses to hire lawyers to determine whether or not they can refuse to engage a particular applicant without running afoul of the EEOC regulations. Given that any extra money will then be spent on lawyers, the end result will probably not be any new net hiring of African-Americans so much as a lucrative new field of employment for those who have been called to the bar.
Thus it turns out that messaging is not as simple as it seems. In the EEOC case there are at least three sets of messages: the signal the EEOC purports to send; the signal the EEOC actually sends and the signal the employer actually receives. In this instance the message purportedly sent is “do not discriminate against people with criminal records”; the message actually sent is “hire African-Americans but if they screw up you are liable as an employer” and the message actually received is “hire a lawyer”.
Things don’t always work as intended. This is a cautionary tale which illustrates why Paul Krugman’s scheme to re-start the economy by preparing for an invasion of space aliens may not work as planned. The best laid plans of mice and men can often go astray. The recent arrest of a former San Francisco Human Rights Commissioner on charges of the possession of child pornography illustrate the principle that there’s always an exception to the rule, assuming one can even know what the rule is any more.
Who is going to tell small companies not to discriminate against those with criminal backgrounds when people like Human Rights Commissioners are themselves sometimes the problem? In a complex world individual initiative and discretion are invaluable. They are still the best way to tell the aliens apart from the predators, the sheep from the wolves, and good investment from malinvestment. Common sense may still play its part, if we let it.
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When dealing with a sick patient , the tough part is usually diagnosis. Once the cause of the problem has been correctly identified, we can often do something constructive about it.
Krugman’s diagnosis is wrong. What ails our economy is over-regulation. But the Krugmans of this world cannot allow themselves to consider that the economy’s problems may be iatrogenic.
I think I was the first I know of to point out that our real problem is a 50 year government “stimulus program” consisting of all of the things that ate up our Design Margin.
Krugman is a fish 200 ft deep in the ocean asserting there is a drought and what is needed is more water. He has never known a world without government stimulus programs of one kind or another. He no longer sees what he swims in.
He overlooks the fact that the “alien invasion” scare tactic was just tried in the guise of global warming and failed miserably.
How like a liberal to conclude that the fear of boogeymen is the primary determinant of human behavior. Only an intellectual can be this stupid.
The esteemed {by some} “economist” fails to understand that the small businesses that do most of the hiring live in the world, and face a reality he vaguely dreams about. He would not consider asking the question “What would I do if all my capital, my family’s capital, everything we own, was invested in the business. Would we risk all that to hire one more employee, who may have been arrested or jailed at one time? Would we risk the Feds on the other side threatening to sue because of discrimination? The obvious answer to a disinterested bystander is not only No, but Hell No. We’ll just bide our time until the risk has decreased to an understandable level.”
If you live in world where you can go hungry because of Federal Follies, you realize the elephant can step on you and not even know it. It is real, not some 3AM beer and pizza fueled dorm room discussion. When we see the tax dollars being thrown at Solyndra and look-alikes, we get the message. Our money is being given to those who were sent. The increase in GDP is not real and sustainable, but the results of payoffs to the connected, and we’ll just wait until we see real change, thank you very much. We were smart enough to run our business without “help” before, and we can tell virtual prosperity from the real thing.
If you have no respect for your fellow citizens ability to discriminate between bad and good investment, between real and invented growth, you will continue to try and ‘fool some of the people some of the time’, and will be recognized as a charlatan, of which we have many, especially in government ‘service’.
IOW, I don’t believe one word Krugman says. He is a puppet gibbering the party line, which happens to be obviously wrong.
tom
If I was a small business owner, the message I recieved would be “don’t hire anyone until the administration in Washington changes.”
Great post.
Why not give hiring preference to people with Concealed Carry Permits ?
Krugman misses a key point.
Unfortunately, so do many of his detractors.
Government spending is irrelevant.
Government BUYING is critical.
The economy gains nothing, and indeed, it loses, if my tax dollars go up to fund the early retirement and plentiful sick and personal days of government employees. Infrastructure spending? It does not help to fund a commission to study forming a task force to analyze proposals to issue recommendations for building a bridge.
Building the bridge, on the other hand, can definitely be an economic boost. Successful governments throughout history provided security and infrastructure, and let people take it from there.
Krugrman ignores this. All billions of dollars are not equal. The real issue is not “how much did we spend?” but “what was our impact on transport costs between New Orleans and New York?”
Sometimes it is useful to restate the obvious. The efficacy of the sum of all economic micro-decisions is greater than the whole; greater by far, than the sum of macro/central planning decisions.
Additionally, we often forget that modeling, whether climatic, structural (i.e. steel buildings) or economic is by definition a simplification created to allow the human mind to cope with the scope of the issue.
Krugman is a macro-economist, a failed one at that
Krugman as Proof of the Devolution of Man:
1) Nobel Prize (actually Award) in Economics,
2) New York Times Pundit,
3) Freak Show Geek.
The government says to the businessman, “Pay more taxes and risk jail with more regulation and risk ruin when you either hire criminals or spend scarce money on lawyers or get sued by criminals denied employment or get sued by victims of criminals you hired, or all of the above, and BTW the courts and Justice are a kangaroo circus.” The businessman says to the government, “I’m moving my capital and jobs to (China Singapore ???). Next will come calls to restrict capital transfers.
The Democrats are not only the enemy of Capital but of Labor. If you want jobs, 1) elect Republicans, 2) cut regulation, 3) restore the Rule of Law.
One of the things that is most scary (to me) is the utter unwillingness to engage with even the remotest possibility that ‘they’ are wrong. In this case the ‘they’ is Krugman and Keynesian economists specifically, but also in the broader context all of progressive illiberalism. There are other theories.
When it was largely theoretical in the 1930′s and 40′s, I can appreciate why someone might come down on the Keynesian side of the debate. But Keynesian economic theory has not performed well at predicting outcomes and empirically observed relationsihps. But ‘we are all Keynesians now’ according to media. The more the observed facts discredit Keynesian theory, the more emphatic the supposed Keynesian defenders become.
What explains that is that they are not Keynesians. It is a deliberate misnomer. Keynesian economic theory is only a cover story, a fig leaf, for socialistic expansion of government. Show me an advocate for Keynesian theory that was clamoring for cuts in the size and spending of government during the econmic expansion of the 90′s, and I will acknowledge them as a Keynesian. For any others (Krugman, ahem) that was not clamoring for cuts in gov’t spending during the ‘good times’, they are not Keynesian, they are socialists. But thay cannot call themselves socialists, so they call themselves Keynesians.
Keynesian economic theory of aggregate demand (not a theory I agree with) calls for using government spending as a gas and brake pedal on the economy. When the economy is hurting for demand (like now) government spending should expand to stimulate aggregate demand. When the economy is not hurting (like the 90′s) government spending should withdraw. But no ‘Keynesians’ ever advocate for the withdrawl of keynesian stimulus. It is supposed to be a short term stimulus to regulate the ‘speed’ of the economy. But their action is to always and everywhere to mash the gas pedal to the metal. When the engine is doing 100 rpm and sputtering stepping on the gas may posssibly be the correct action, but when the problem is that the tachometer is redlining, if the solution is still to mash on the gas pedal harder, that is not much of a theory.
If someone theorizes taking cocaine once for a short term stimulus, that theory may or may not ‘help’ the situation. If someone takes cocaine every day, and needs more and more of it everyday to function, on the theory that taking cocaine ‘helps’ it is not a legitimate theory. Our ‘Keynesians’ are just addicts whose proscription is always ‘more gov’t’ and it is not much of an economic theory.
So to close out the argument, why I am scared by this. They are not going to stop. Reality is and has been slapping them in the face. That ‘they’ won’t stop does not mean it will continue…reality will stop them. Reality stopping them will be ugly, very much uglier than stopping voluntarily would have to be. But they will not stop. I see a bad moon rising.
The late Roman empire was quite ‘Keynesian’ in its way with its ‘bread and circus’ subsidies. They had so much momentum and such a strong starting foundation, it went far longer and bigger than anything before it could have. The economic crash that followed that excess lasted over a thousand years and is called the dark ages for a reason. Most of the lights went out, but a few in the far reaches flickered, barely hanging on. It took centuries, but the few surviving lights in the reaches and in foreign lands eventually passed the torch and lit the lights of Europe again.
This time I fear there is no reach far enough. Last time, the Muslim world carried through much of the greco roman legacy through Europe’s dark times. We know they will not provide that shelter again. I don’t think the Chinese communists (really fascists, another misnomer) will provide that service. The lights may all go out, never to be lit again.
…While Mr. Krugman has been at the Times it has gone from a 7 billion dollar organization to a 1 billion dollar organization. Perhaps his advice is not as productive as he thinks it is.
Sorry for the long and depressing post. Someone please cheer me up.
5. Dogbert: “If I was a small business owner, the message I recieved would be “don’t hire anyone until the administration in Washington changes.”
Pretty darn close.
As a small business owner, the received message is “don’t hire anyone until the cost/regulatory burden is reduced.” If Obama is re-elected and his growing army of minions continue their pursue-and-punish missions, the received message will become “don’t hire anyone.”
the message actually received is “hire a lawyer”.
The message actually received is “hire somebody in China out of reach of the feds”.
restoring economic confidence
Yes, well, OK, the above example is typical of confidence issues, but unfortunately the offshoring, globalization issues are about FAR more than “confidence”, there are a dozen economic short-term reasons to move offshore that allow someone to make a profit now – at the cost of future destruction of the national infrastructure. The problems are structural, not psychological. You pretty much have to repeal Ricardo to solve it.
… well no, that’s overly negative, I have stated the positive here, Ricardo *needs* to be repealed because it is only true in a limited domain, optimize over a longer term and you get good answers, even if it means suppressing short-term gains from globalization. This pretty much vitiates Ricardo.
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Let me say a few words about that moron Krugman, with a bit of a recital of some more stuff vaguely recalled from Econ 1 about forty years ago. How could he POSSIBLY think that spending trillions in stimulus could be a good thing, when wherever he gets the trillion dollars FROM creates an equal and opposite NEGATIVE stimulus – drag – giant sucking sound? Well, I vaguely recall a semi-quantitative answer to that, in socialist terms, that IF the wealth of the economy is being hoarded, piles of gold coins in a vault, THEN breaking into the vault and stealing the coins and spending them, is stimulatory, with positive multiplier, with no (short-term) negatives. In fact, even a monetarist might agree. So, there *is* (perhaps) a case where such a government confiscatory (tax) and spending plan is positive. But can one imagine any such tax being passed? It would have to be a wealth tax, a tax on capital – and modern capital doesn’t sit in bank vaults in glittery piles, it sits in cyberspace and skitters across national boundaries if you look at it cross-eyed. I know of no other case where money for stimulus can be got, and not incur negatives as large as any positives. Well, you can borrow from the future, and if you believe you can do so interest-free, as it seems under Bernankecare, then there is no reason not to – you can borrow from your great-great-great-to-the-nth grandchildren and pay it back a million years in the future, IF REAL INTEREST RATES ARE ZERO. In normal times, interest rates are non-zero, and you can’t get anything like that going at all.
Oh yeah, there is one other way to do a wealth tax, you do a stealth wealth tax – by printing money. Which we are doing. Bernanke is five years ahead of Krugman. But you get into an exponential explosion, you have to double the amount printed to get the same effect, you go – what did I call it, ZWow – Zimbabwe, Weimar, or worse. So, just as most students who passed Econ 1 should recognize, Krugman’s recommendation is wildly inflationary, is in no way similar to what happened to end The Depression, and he is a moron. And Bernanke is playing with fire – but appears to know it.
“Someone please cheer me up.
”
From suffering comes endurance, from endurance comes character, and from character comes hope. St. Paul said that.
Worship of the golden calf tends to be a self-limiting proposition. I said that.
Disquiet abides in the mind of the public, evidenced by the overwhelming majority avowing that the country is headed in the wrong direction. How to understand this, though? Clearly, the course prefered by the constituents of this majority is divergent, comprising conservative, liberal, and libertarian perspectives.
Krugman bitterly clings to the notion that properity is just around the bend. Four more years of hope and change, supplemented with a generous helping of deficit spending, even if for frivolous purposes, and Viola, the public will gleefully open their purses, fostering a new wave of demand to restore the good ole days. Let the good times roll.
At BC, the plurality ascerts that the ‘design margin’ is expended. The system has reached a point of saturation in which additional spending cannot achieve the intended goals of stimulating another long march of prosperity. Further disturbances of significant magnitude can drive the system beyond a threshold of recovery, to a point where severe discontinuity is assured.
Our hope is that fiscal sanity prevails over unfounded wishful thinking. The plurality of the public seems to agree, but the promise of free stuff, such as health care paid for by government, is a powerful inducement to suspend reason.
I don’t see what the big deal is. We already have to hire the zombies provided by our institutions of higher learning. Sociopaths are much livelier people and keep everyone else on their toes.
10. Daedalus Mugged
Excellent post. One minor quibble: It is a myth, oft-repeated and widely believed, that the Muslim world that preserved the Greco-Roman legacy through the European Dark Age. In fact it was the Byzantines who performed this service, with the Muslim world piggy-backing on the their achievements. Victor Davis Hanson has written about this; but see especially Lars Brownworth’s Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization.
My advice for Paul K.: A thounsand ounces of silver will be far more helpful in the hard times ahead than even the most brilliant theories. Global economic and currency collapse can ruin your whole day.
Krugman is right about failing confidence being the problem but wrong about how to improve confidence and thus the economy.
As Swami @7. mentions some targeted government spending has a positive multiplier – such as building/improving infrastructure that makes us more efficient. The Porkulus Bill, $845 billion, had only a small amount spent on infrastructure. The rest was spent on green energy (which does not make us more efficient) along with propping up states’ budgets and unemployment insurance. Not much multiplier there instead just treading water.
Who can blame businesses for hunkering down when the administration is anti- business in all it does – Obamacare, increasing energy regulation/costs (have you noticed your electric bill increasing?), regularly bad-mouthing the wealthy, increasing all regulation, and dragging their feet on free trade agreements.
Businesses have more than $2 trillion in their coffers, there is over $1 trillion sittng in money market funds, large multi-national corporations have a trillion or more dollars stranded in overseas locations, and many people are buying gold/commodities as insurance against inflation. This capital, now stranded, could fund new, explosiove growth in the economy if only the government were to become pro business and thereby renew confidence. When the government sets up road blocks for business there is no way confidence can be restored no matter how much the government attempts to stimulate demand. IMO, it is simply Econ 101.
Epi @ 16: “… the public will gleefully open their purses, fostering a new wave of demand to restore the good ole days.”
You nailed the Krugman-type expectation. But Krugman does not look closely at the behavior of his rich liberal/progressive (fascist) neighbors.
Give people in the US more money through government action, and what happens? They will buy huge German gas-guzzlers or overpriced Japanese autos, which run on imported oil. They will buy Chinese-made iPads, and French wines. If they are rich enough to be Democrat Senators, they will buy yachts from New Zealand. They might hire an extra gardener, as long as he is illegal, paid under the table, and sends most of what little they pay him back to his family in Central America.
Most of Krugman’s “stimulus” exits the US economy, leaving behind only the debt for the over-regulated unemployed US citizen to contemplate.
SamW
Why not give hiring preference to people with Concealed Carry Permits ?
Although that makes sense to you and I, as such people have already been background checked, deemed mentally stable, and possess the desirable character traits of self-reliance, bravery and loyalty, the EEOC does not want to create another super-class.
The EEOC is all about mediocrity. They enforce mediocrity to spread the pain around amongst employers. It is very difficult to fire a middle-aged lesbian today – they’re a desired protected class. A black lesbian veteran with a disability is even better – all big companies need to be able to check those boxes.
I’ve never understood how Keynesian economics can be used only in part and yet produce the full application results. We can’t chant Keynes name while promoting more deficit spending in bad times and ignore the fact that there was no surplus in the good times. People who think that this can work are out of touch with average American who is very nervous about our Government’s massive debt and total inability to even pass a budget, let alone a budget that balances out.
So times are rotten. Obama and his ilk don’t understand why Americans are so nervous. The Chinese have told us twice that they will only prop us up if things look sustainable. And last I checked, Congress has not passed a budget. You history buffs can probably spot the parallels to nations that ultimately experienced hyperinflation (something we are somewhat immune to).
2006 saw the election of the biggest bunch of loons to Congress ever. These extreme-left Democrats are completely out of touch with normal America. 2010 saw some of these loons replaced. Hopefully 2012 will clean House even more.
I’ve known that America could survive 4 years of the junior senator from the anus of Chicago. But I’m not so sure about 8. Anybody but Obama!
A seal pup for a lighter view of things – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDFDpWoZYKA
If K-man wants a war, there is a perfectly good one waiting to be fought. Islam has been at war with the West for over 1,000 years. The west has fought back sporadically. Just enough to drive them back into their caves for a generation or two. We need to get serious and finish the job. If war is what they want, give them all they want.
“the assumption that the economy must interpret the signal in the way that Krugman desires”
Krugman’s desires are a function of his ambition: An economic policy of leaving people alone to make their own decisions would have precious little use for mandarins like Krugman. His career and prestige are wholly dependent on convincing people that the economy can only function if it is managed by wise persons like himself. If reality contradicts his desires, well, the well-being of the nation is unimportant compared to his own.
23. stoicheion
Only if we do the 30 day variety as opposed to the timid 30 year kind “those who know better than us” seem to prefer.
13. GDI
5. Dogbert: “If I was a small business owner, the message I recieved would be “don’t hire anyone until the administration in Washington changes.”
Pretty darn close.
As a small business owner, the received message is “don’t hire anyone until the cost/regulatory burden is reduced.” If Obama is re-elected and his growing army of minions continue their pursue-and-punish missions, the received message will become “don’t hire anyone.”
Romney’s and the GOP’s strong suit, if they can exploit it and narrate it skillfully.
Ignacio Lula da Silva is a “smart” Social Democrat: “we must have capitalism first before we can have socialism.” Cynical, but “practical” for a short-to-medium run.
Obama is a stupid Social Democrat. He could have unleashed the energy sector, held off on punitive regulations, and delayed Obamacare legislation by at least a year. He could have explained his economic decisions to his acolytes in the usual neo-Orwellian mendacity that is his trademark. The ecnomy would have been moving along at a decent and noticeable clip, there might not have been a Tea Party. He would have ben a shoo-in for re-election, and he could then ambush the American peope with his “fundamental transformation” in his second term, with the wind of a strong economy billowing his socialist sails.
But no, he is too beholden to the ideologues who “sent him.” It is now glaringly obvious that he owes them a great deal more than he feels any obligation to the country as a whole.
“Obama is a stupid Social Democrat.”
He’s looking more and more like an actual fascist. See this interview with Ed Klein about his new book “The Amateur”.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Hinderaker-Ward-Experience-26-The-Amateur
In a 2009 meeting with various historians, Obama said that he favored a corporatist system. How do you say Il Duce in South Side Chicagoese?
27) Agreed – we can be very thankful that Obama is so incompetent as a leader/administrator/manager.
Krugman is the economic equivalent of Soviet “scientist” Trofim Denisovich Lysenko. Lysenko was an agricultural technician who conducted experiments with plant breeding that seemed to show increased yields. Lysenko managed to capture Stalin’s enthusiastic support for a scheme based on the long-discredited LaMarckian theory.*
If that seems a stretch, just keep in mind that having invested so thoroughly in Lysenko, Stalin forced his (“HIS!”) scientists to salute and praise Lysenko, and apply his theories to their own work. Scientists who resisted (outraged at the elevation of dunderheaded pseudo-science) were demoted, fired, and even arrested, tried, and sent to the gulags. Some simply disappeared.
Of course, we could NEVER have someone as brutal and self-obsessed as Stalin.
Nope, can’t happen HERE…
But we sure have a hell of a lot of Lysenkos.
======================
* My guess is that Stalin’s collectivization and central planning were so thoroughly disrupting agricultural yields that Lysenko’s un-disrupted experiments would have been guaranteed to give higher yields. Just pure speculation…
On the other hand, maybe K-mann knew what he was talking about. Or had inside information;
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/06/26/possible-alien-message-to-get-reply-from-humanity/
I don’t think Krugman is stupid. However he might have an misplaced confidence in the infallibility of academic theory. When the stakes are high it always pays to test first, no matter how good the code looks. There are many things, for example, that we are each confident is true, but which of us would entrust an entire economy of hundreds of millions to it?
There’s certitude and there’s certitude.
Most people would put a feedback loop in place and try a theory, a bit at a time, before letting it rip. Like putting your weight gradually on a foothold before shifting your whole weight to it. That’s the handyman’s way.
But to make these grand leaps of certitude on the basis of some dead economist’s reasoning is sometimes dangerous. To re-engineer the world on the basis of whatever Marx, Lenin, Mao or Gramsci said. Well they could be wrong. And even if not entirely so, it is the partial truths that are more dangerous than the complete falsehoods.
Recall that the police have since learned to use IP tracing to find malefactors. But the devil is always in the details. You can imagine the following dialog in the search team: “yep, boss. This is the guy. I looked at his computer and it definitely says “localhost”. And the IP checks out too: 192.168.1.0 He’s our man.”
There’s certitude and there’s certitude.
For your information: these laws don’t apply if the employer has NINE OR FEWER EMPLOYEES.
So, the real message sent is never grow past nine employees.
======
I once had a gal, age 35, whom I had to fire promptly — meaning the very next payday — Friday.
She had a tick: EVERY time I was speaking, she HAD to over-talk, as if I were her child. That was pretty weird since I was the head of the enterprise and had hired her.
She went on a tirade, come the Friday, stating that I’d fired her because she was too old.
I sat in astonishment – considering the realities – however, I did elaborate that she ought to tell her attorney that we had eight employees — he’ll want to know.
Comes the next Tuesday: I get an enraged phone call — she’d been throw out of the attorney’s office.
Such are the travails of small business life.
As several commenters have pointed out, the Left’s current “Keynesian” economics is no such thing. Keynes rested his theories on an assumption that the government would, on average over a period of years, maintain a balanced budget. Of course no such thing has happened. Not saying I agree with Keynes, but the Left is now using Keynesianism strictly as a cover story. What they’re really engaging in is, essentially, is government by piracy and patronage. The Democrats are economically (and in some other ways) treating America as a vanquished enemy, to be looted and pillaged as they desire.
I said back in 2008 that the current generation of Americans needed to experience a bit of socialism in order to see why it’s a bad idea, in the same manner that our generation needed to experience Carterism. But Carter’s now looking like a best-case scenario. The entitlement classes are very close to having an absolute majority, and being able to vote themselves any benefits they desire until the well runs dry. But the productive classes, who usually don’t get into politics much because they’re busy, well, producing, are waking up to the extent of the problem. An awful lot is hinging on the 2012 elections, and I’m hoping Romney is the right guy. I will say that, based on what I’ve seen the past six months, I’m cautiously optimistic.
25. 49erDweet
I think General Grant had it right.
Find the enemy. Hit them as fast as you can, as hard as you can. Don’t stop until they quit.
K-man and his socialist butt-buds all make the same mistake. They see the economy as numbers. It isn’t, it’s people. Numbers never do irrational things. People do all the time.
Blert, is it still 9? I thought Bush II changed it to 12. I’m too old to worry about that stuff anymore. Being retired has it’s upside. The downside is no medical insurance. My Heart Attack in February has cost me over 40K so far. Still haven’t paid the cardiologist. He says wait until he looks at the inside of my heart and decides what else I need. He wanted to do it while I was in the hospital but I told him no, that I wanted to quit smoking first. No point in getting a by-pass or a shunt(stent?) if the smoking kills me before the stiches heal. I’m down to 4 on a good day.
Even if I get Insurance today, It’s a pre-existing condition and not covered. The best guess I’ve gotten is about a quarter mill. Cha-ching! Not real keen about that but the money won’t do me any good dead and the IRS will take it from my kids, so I’m over a barrel. I think the cardiologist wants to do it next year because of taxes. ‘course I had zero income in 2011 and the same so far in ’12 so I have been living off my capitol. Dying might save me some money, so long as my brothers are willing to do an Indian burial.
Government doesn’t make anything of value, right? So unless I’m very much mistaken, all government does is shift value around from producers to consumers. When they borrow money, they are shifting value in time. Printing money is neutral, all it does is creates more markers for the same amount of tangible wealth. So what all of this means is a “stimulus” really just amounts to taking wealth from where the market wants to apply it, and applying it where career politicians want to apply it. No wonder we’re in a Depression.
15. maineman
I have hope. Just not much hope. I was hoping for more hope. Alas, it seems no one could cheer me up.
Character? Character you say, what would I do with that?!?
18. Roughcoat
I agree that Byzantines (eastern Roman empire) played a huge role in preserving the greco roman legacy what with them being rather literally the greco romans. And it is true that the fall of Constantinople, and the diaspora of greco romans throughout Europe immediately before and after the fall was one of the key sparks of the Rennaisance, the rebirth of the lights of Europe. But some credit must be given to the Muslim world for preserving the legacy. There are many original works we know of only from the translations back from the Arabic translations of the classics. Where I think you are correct is that the Muslim world often claims credit for the ideas…which thouroughly deserves the debunking you gave it. They did not materially advance most of the fields (which they often claim) but they did preserve a large portion of the history that would otherwise have been lost. We can read the words of many ancients only because they survived outside of Christiandom…knowledge that survived through the Arab world, but not in the Celtic/Germanic world.
Last time, the Muslim world carried through much of the greco roman legacy through Europe’s dark times.
Ever hear of Constantinople or the Eastern Roman Empire? They spoke Greek by the way. From where do you think the Muslims got their copies of Aristotle, Plato, et al? Could it have been from the Greek educated, Greek speaking, Greek culture of the Byzantines? Did you know that there was always a large Venetian community in Constantinople and that people, goods, and ideas moved freely from one area to the other for centuries before the Renaissance?
Sorry to jump in on a minor part of the comment but I am really sick and tired of hearing how the Muslims preserved classical culture. The Byzantines were living the Greco-Roman legacy.
Taking a contrarian point of view I’d say that Washington hasn’t created an economy with partners Too Big to Fail but a business environment where the vast majority of the players are Too Small to Succeed. The burden of government oversight has throttled small business into oblivion. My brother has had a problem with getting paid by one his major payer’s. He was late in paying payroll one week. In response the Labor Relations Board came in and told him if he is late again they will levy him with a $10,000 fine. Can’t pay your bills? We’ll fine you. I just got hit with a $165 fix it ticket for having a tail light out. Government has become a shakedown organization against the individual. It is there to protect special interests, the environment, and major corporations from being harmed by the consumer.
Stoicheion,
in all the times I’ve changed employers and switched/lost/regained health insurance coverage, my own pre-existing conditions were almost invariably not covered for only the first year of insurance; Once I survived that year, coverage was extended to cover costs related to the pre-existing condition.
I haven’t had occasion to test this with something on the scale of a heart attack, and as they say “your mileage may vary” depending on the terms of any particular coverage.
I’ve heard from a number of sources that you can also negotiate DIRECTLY with a lot of providers. The negotiability of charges also seems to become much more plastic if one offers to pay with Ag or Au.
Finally, some friends swear that prayer helps, even by a congregation of folks who don’t know you from Adam. The idea is that the message reaches precincts where you ARE known.
What Krugman seems to forget is that WWII sparked revolutions in manufacturing like the aircraft for the airline industry. Try jump starting a service economy with more government spending. It wont work.
We already have an example of Krugmans’ government spending. The AGW racket is anti-market by its very definition. It is government control of all markets by artificially creating scarcity. It is the multi-trillion dollar fiasco called global warming. Government is scaring the hell out people because of their tin-ear. Markets are made out of people and if consumer confidence in congress is any indicator then actions taken to stimulate the economy will probably only stimulate food hording and ammunition sales.
So you can’t discriminate against previous criminal activity. What if you embezzled money from a money launderer who moved drug money? The thing I like is that they run your credit report then charge you for it. Had a problem paying your bills? No income for you! The world has gone mad and big government is leading the way.
Why does anyone take Krugman seriously? When you’re down to ‘Fake Alien Invasions’ where are the men in white coats to take him away? Where is the Government to get the trillions of dollars (Krugman’s number 8-10 trillion)to spend? Taxes on consumers? No, then they would spend even less money then they already are. Borrow it? From whom, we’re all tapped out. Print it? The bond market would go nuts, interest rates would skyrocket as would inflation. Why is reasoning with a liberal/progressive like talking sense to a six year old? Because no matter how much baby talk you use you’re still trying to reason with a six year old. The party is over. Get ready for the mother of all hangovers.
This “trick” has not worked in Japan and they’ve been trying it with different magicians for over 20 years. Here we have empirical evidence that it does NOT always work (who the hell knows if it EVER worked because many economists think FDR’s death, which ended his financially-repressive regime, and NOT WWII triggered the great post-War boom.) It did not work once so it may not work again – it ain’t worth betting the country on it to find out.
20. Jimmy J.
Krugman is right about failing confidence being the problem but wrong about how to improve confidence and thus the economy.
Businesses have more than $2 trillion in their coffers, there is over $1 trillion sittng in money market funds, large multi-national corporations have a trillion or more dollars stranded in overseas locations, and many people are buying gold/commodities as insurance against inflation. This capital, now stranded, could fund new, explosive growth in the economy if only the government were to become pro business and thereby renew confidence. When the government sets up road blocks for business there is no way confidence can be restored no matter how much the government attempts to stimulate demand. IMO, it is simply Econ 101.
…………..
This stuff is so basic that even Bill Clinton was saying it a year or two ago when there was a chance for Obama to turn things around before the 2012 election. Unlike Clinton, Obama has ideological blinders.
I don’t have the graph handy but I saw one that showed employment growth was ticking along pretty well until the month after Obamacare was passed on March 23, 2010. Then employment growth stopped dead.
So its likely if the supreme court rules against obamacare on thursday and the pubbies win come november — that the business confidence will perk up. Romney’s crowd hates Dodd Frank so that will likely go and the EPA’s war on oil and coal will be scaled back.
The death of obamacare, doddfrank and the halt of the epa war on fossil fuels combined with changing tax laws to encourage corporations to move their money out of US and foreign banks and into investments into America —…. will greatly spur the economy.
The third horse is spurred by encouraging the energy patch by allowing drilling on federal lands. Likely drilling will be allowed in alaska the gulf the rockies, and some sections of the east coast like Virginia. But not california.
Over the horizon there is another industrial revolution looming. I write about that in an ebook I published on Amazon called Collapsing Water and Energy Costs: How Bill Gates Or You! Can Create the Inventions That Spark the Next Industrial and Agricultural Revolution. You can download the ebook for free on Friday.
Upside flows from the same result as the downside of the next industrial and agricultural revolution. The big scary future bills are going to get paid. People will become complacent again. Its just the next couple years that will be tough.
Related:
“All this for a damn flag?”
The Obamas at the September 11th Memorial ceremony. Just look at the expressions on their faces.
Lip readers from a school for the deaf read her lips in this video, and this is what she said off-mike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJgWMI0hch8&feature=related
Pass it on . . . to EVERYONE. I think this ends the debate about whether BO means well for our country and is incompetent, or whether he’s consciously trying to bring her down.
37. Daedalus Mugged
Constantinople was the Minas Tirith of Western Civilization. Sadly, unlike Minas Tirith, it fell to the hordes from the East. Overwhelmed by orc-like multitudes of Bashi-bazouks and Jannissaries. Subsequently Vienna twice assumed Minas Tirith’s role, and succeeded. But Constantinople and its people went down fighting. How they fought! And at the very last the emperor, offered a chance to escape by ship, refusing; then discarding his regalia and wading into the fray to die in battle, with his people. The downfall of Byzantium was tragic, but noble and glorious.
38. Peter Boston
Re “there was always a large Venetian community in Constantinople and … people, goods, and ideas moved freely from one area to the other for centuries before the Renaissance.”
Correct. Interaction between Western Europe and the more advanced Byzantine Empire predated the fall of Constantinople. The Byzantines (who, btw, called themselves “Romans”) were not only Western Civilization’s bulwark; they were its instructors and saviors.
mf @ 30: Krugman is the economic equivalent of Soviet “scientist” Trofim Denisovich Lysenko.
I suggest that is giving Krugman too much credit and Lysenko not enough. Lamarkian theory was semi-respectable way past Darwin’s publication, until first population biology math and then the discovery of the physical basis and structure of DNA finally proved inheritance a truly credible physical theory, and that was as late as 1960! Not only that, but we are still discovering controls on genes, RNA, and other extra-genetic mechanisms that could be quite Lamarkian in *addition* to Mendelian genetics. Lysenko used bad assumptions, but AFAIK he used good logic from that point on.
Krugman, on the other hand, I doubt could pass Econ 1 at this point.
I don’t think Krugman is stupid. However he might have an misplaced confidence in the infallibility of academic theory.
I think that might be a good description of the economic profession in general and a fair number of (mostly leftist) practitioners. I was going to try to say something about this, but it’s hard to say it concisely. They get all excited about aggregate models and linear programming, and don’t notice that their pants are on fire. Well, that’s concise, perhaps it conveys the general meaning.
But K-man his own self has developed such a reputation for mis-reading all attempts at discussion, much less opposition, and then got me ticked off showing his invalid mathematical models based on the fed’s graphic website, that I have to conclude, at this point, his problems go well beyond a misplaced academic emphasis on models. Maybe not “stupid” because now and again he has managed a sharp observation on some opposing theories, but “crazy” may still apply, and I’m happy to summarize it all as “moronic”.
c @ 45: Businesses have more than $2 trillion in their coffers…
And no reason to spend any of it because they have warehouses full of stuff built in 2008 in anticipation of demand that has evaporated and isn’t coming back anytime soon.
Ditto companies not borrowing money even at modest interest rates, they have no use for the money except as Bernanke allows the banks to do, to borrow at zero rates use it to by t-bonds and live on the interest, and then unwind the completely untenable positions by “operation twist”. This may be the largest organized theft of public monies in the history of the world, and it’s being justified as “necessary” under the general heading of TBTF.
But I hold that the underlying problems are structural, related to globalization, and not monetary at all, nor even political until and unless politics involves some new and desperately needed economic theoretical progress – which the likes of K-man seem particularly unable to supply.
–
r @ 47: Constantinople was the Minas Tirith of Western Civilization. Sadly, unlike Minas Tirith, it fell to the hordes from the East. Overwhelmed by orc-like multitudes of Bashi-bazouks and Jannissaries. Which subsequently allowed Vienna to twice, successfully, assume Minas Tirith’s role. But Constantinople and its people went down fighting. How they fought! And at the very last the emperor, offered a chance to escape by ship, refusing; then discarding his regalia and wading into the fray to die in battle, with his people. The downfall of Byzantium was tragic, but noble and glorious.
I didn’t know that. I still need to read (a lot) more history. OTOH Constantinople stood there on the edge of the oncoming Ottoman empire for something like 500 years, so it wasn’t exactly a shock when the end finally came – many times the time span … well let me check … Osgiliath ruined in 2475, the Fellowship is 3018, well OK that is about the right time-frame, isn’t it? Also, the start of the use of cannon made holding any fixed position increasingly difficult, and apparently that’s all the Byzantines had even attempted in a couple of centuries. This is sort of roughly paralleled in Tolkien, I guess.
Don Rodrigo #27:
It is said that a Socialist is one who see Capitalism as a cow to be milked, while a Communist is one who see Capitalism as a cow to be slaughtered. Obama thinks he can to do both, simultaneously.
Wretchard #32:
And they ignore the fact that thanks to federalism the test has been done and it did not work, in California, Illinois, New York, etc.
And the cops might well get it down to 192.1.1.5 – and arrest the HP printer.
Annoy #41:
And what we might ponder is why it was a good idea to spend hundreds of million$ on Solandra, other hopeless Green projects, cash for clunkers, studies on Siberian grandparents, and so forth and NOT build more F-22′s, or for that matter restart the A-10 production line, which would give us an aircraft very likely even more valuable than the F-22 – but in any case give us SOMETHING – as opposed to what we got under Obama’s plans.
Blert #33:
Maybe so, but the Americans With Disabilities Act applies to all businesses, regardless of number of employees. The first lawsuit ever filed under the Act was against a 1 man tax education service in NC that did not have a wheelchair ramp. And recently the Labor Dept has filed suits against companies for not hiring people with bad backs to do heavy lifting or for people with epilepsy to drive truckloads of hazardous waste.
Exhelo #29:
And we can be thankful that the economy is not doing well for another reason: Would you give a a loaded handgun to a three year old well known for his tantrums?
Today, Tuesday 26 June, there is a link under the “PJ TATLER” to a video made by some Christian Missionaries who tried to distribute Christian literature while carrying signs, during a festival in Dearborn, Michigan. The community hosts a very substantial Muslim immigrant population with now 2nd & 3rd generation citizens.
This video shows us the future under Obama.
It’s not clear from the video whether the festival itself was purely secular or had been for the benefit of the Muslim community. It shouldn’t matter.
What is clear in the video is that the muslims, from grade-school age to retirement age were either actively attacking the Christians – throwing everything from eggs, bottles, urine, whole milk crates, to chunks of concrete – or shouting obscenities, making aggressive threats, or (many adults) smiling as the teenagers pelted the Christians from a distance.
The DEARBORN police response as the Muslim attacks grew more intense and deadly, was to tell the Christians that THEY were the problem, that their presence and signs were enraging the Muslims, so the Christians would have to leave.
A high-ranking police official lectured them at length, threatening them with arrest if they refused to leave, claiming the police did not have enough officers available to leave two uniforms with them to prevent the Muslim attacks continuing. (Yes, it’s possible that was edited in later from a completely OTHER situation…)
YET, the video shows that as the missionaries were driving away after complying with the Dearborn Police demand that they leave, four police cars boxed and stopped them, with TWELVE UNIFORMED OFFICERS standing around while someone in the department decided what charges they could pile on the group.
The Dearborn municipal government is in the thrall of DEMOCRAT PARTY/Marxist party doctrine combined with an increasingly militant Muslim community, which as of 2010 comprised 41 percent of the populace. This is the district of Congressman John Dingle, who has been re-elected 26 TIMES since winning a special election in 1955 to fill the un-expired term of his dead father who had held the office himself since 1933!
Leo, Where Is You?
We have an administration that has defied and violated constitutional restrictions, existing federal legislation, court precedents and rules of the United States legislature, and the expressed judgment and will of the Supreme Court of the United States. It would be insane to expect Obama to behave ANY DIFFERENTLY should SCOTUS overturn any portions of the so-called “ObamaCare” 2,000+-page bill.
TSA over the last few years is expanding to remote check-points on limited access highways, bus, and train stations, and probably malls, theaters, and intersections. Already in airline terminals YOU ARE REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO THE ORDERS OF THE TSA OFFICERS. You may NOT decline to be searched and leave the area. Those who have tried to leave have been arrested, and hit with fines up to $5,000.00 for resisting.
What do YOU call a nation where you can be stopped and searched by paramilitary officers ANYWHERE for no particular reason, where any resistance makes you subject to arrest, fines, and imprisonment?
What can you expect from a government that increasingly supports groups that impose their will by intimidation and violence?
The solution for small business is to do business the “old world” way. Never, EVER advertise a job. Hire only close family, family friends, or people personally recommended by others. If you are not already “in” you are forever “out”. The Fed’s can never get a toe-hold if I do business the old way. The Union’s have no chance to take over a business that does things this way.
The unfortunate result of doing business this defensive way is that (a) growth crawls to “old world” levels, and (b) middle class vertical job opportunity evaporates. The rising tide no longer lifts all boats. For an example of this, try to get a job as a longshoreman. Those jobs are forever remaindered to the friends and families of existing longshoreman. Consequently, it’s a near-dead industry, and shipping in general has been taken over by worlds without unions, i.e. third worlds mostly.
The thing that Obama and crew are missing is that people WILL react. The leftists do not have sufficient control to compel the level of control over human behavior that is required to implement their grandiose schemes, even if they knew what the hell they were doing. If it were possible, the KGB and German Stassi would have created heaven on earth a long time ago.
Every idea of the Democrat left is bankrupt, and with them in charge, the county is quickly following suite. They are “THE LIE”. I don’t even bother attempting civil conversation with anyone on the left, even within family, because they will like, misrepresent, obfuscate, tell half-truths, and project their worst intentions upon you. It’s impossible to come to a point of compromise with people who will not even agree on the possibility of objective truth.
The worry is, over half of American’s seem in moral lock-step with the left, even if they are not in political agreement. No truth, no justice, no peace, and eventually, no liberty and no life.
Yeah the government and Bank of Japan has been trying Krugman’s approach for a couple of decades now. The economy never took off and their debt to GDP ratio is something like 400%. But the punkdits say that is OK because it is internal debt not external debt….but they are locked in a deflationary spiral that is kill their exports. Money if leaving Japan. Krugman is a vanity writer for a vanity Newpaper that is slowly sinking. I’ve watched Krugman being interviewed and he has all the ticks and twitches of a lying sack.
#10 Daedelus mugged: “But no ‘Keynesians’ ever advocate for the withdrawl of keynesian stimulus. It is supposed to be a short term stimulus to regulate the ‘speed’ of the economy. But their action is to always and everywhere to mash the gas pedal to the metal.”
It’s like the scene in ‘Galaxy Quest’, where the know-nothing actors are trying to escape the attacking aliens in a real-life crisis. “I’m going as fast as I can!” “Uh, press turbo! I always say ‘Press turbo’, right?” “I’ve already pressed it!” “Well, press it and hold it down!” “You don’t hold the turbo down, it’s just for quick boosts!” And off they go into the mine field, hitting every magnetic mine along the way.
Hey, you said you wanted cheering up, didn’t you? http://tinyurl.com/7dyksl4
“You broke the economy! You broke the bloody economy!”
Ooops. I was interrupted by a delivery and missed my opportunity to check links and correct a few things.
Here’s a direct link to the video:
Youtube video of the Dearborn ARAB Festival of 2012
(I checked the link.)
I’m sure someone has already mentioned the concept of “opportunity costs” in relation to Krugman’s idea of having the government spend an even (and ever) greater amount of the people’s money. This money will not be used by individuals (or, egads, corporations) who might have a better idea of how to spend it.
The typical argument from the Left is that defense spending of any kind must be reduced or curtailed, so it seems nonsensical to have Krugman imploring us to consider funding a multi-trillion defense against space aliens.
Personally, I’d rather put the money into more Solyndras. But maybe it amounts to the same thing.
(Actually, I’d rather keep the money in my own pocket. If that were a viable option, I mean.)
48. Josh
Suggest you read John Julius Norwich’s magnificent trilogy on the history of Byzantium. His chronicle of the siege and fall of Constantinople surpasses fiction. What actually happened is more astounding, and stirring, than the inventions of even the greatest novelists. In the end the people of Constantinople, vastly outnumbered, fought on the walls together, with women fighting side by side with their men. The emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, choosing to die a warrior’s anonymous death (his body was never identified), fighting to the end with the men and women who remained loyal to him to the last. After the city fell a prominent Byzantine nobleman and his two teenage boys were brought before the Sultan Mehmet II. The sultan, a homosexual, told the father that he would spare his boys if he gave them up for his (the sultan’s) sexual pleasures and converted to Islam. The father and his sons refused–and were executed. This is a true story. There are many more like this.
Incidentally, it wasn’t the sultan’s cannons (the biggest of which was designed, forged, and operated by a German artilleryman)that caused Constantinople to fall. Technically the city’s walls were never breached. Rather, in the prevailing confusion at the height of what proved to be the final assault on the walls, a small group of Bashi-bazouks, prowling at the base of the city’s wall, discovered an unguarded, and open, sally port. They forced the door and charged through, followed by hundreds, then thousands more. Swarming into the city, the Turks came up behind the defenders on the walls, where Constantine made his final stand.
“What do YOU call a nation where you can be stopped and searched by paramilitary officers ANYWHERE for no particular reason…”
Amerika?
Too bad the Supreme Court decision with regard to illegal aliens doesn’t also apply to citizens.
I’d like add, with respect to Constantinople, that the city and its defenders could have surrendered to Mehmet II. The sultan had no wish to take the city by storm and he would doubtless would have spared most (but not all) of the population–provided they converted to Islam. Of course, they would have, most of them, been sold into slavery; but they would have survived. But the Greeks chose to go down fighting. Most were killed in the final onslaught or in the orgy of rape, looting, and massacres that followed.
The Byzantine Empire endured for over a thousand years and fulfilled what I daresay was its divinely ordained destiny to stand against the East while giving the West the time and space it needed to recover from the fall of Roman civilization.
And, yes, Tolkien was indeed inspired by the saga of the Byzantines, and said so. He changed the ending, however.
r @ 56: in the prevailing confusion at the height of what proved to be the final assault on the walls, a small group of Bashi-bazouks, prowling at the base of the city’s wall, discovered an unguarded, and open, sally port.
Sounds like the story displaced by Tolkien to Helm’s Deep. I guess Gandalf never showed in 1453!
Norwich … looks out of print and never in paperback? Library, whazzat? Kindle, whazzat? If only there were stores that sold used books … anymore, used to have one a mile from here, that would have had a 50% chance of having one of these on the shelf, oh well. Could order one off the Internet used I guess but it’s not the same somehow. Still thanks for the rec, I’ll try to arrange for it eventually, seems a good topic to be up on these days.
r @ 58: But the Greeks chose to go down fighting. Most were killed in the final onslaught or in the orgy of rape, looting, and massacres that followed.
But they also could have retired peacefully any time in the previous century, I gather. Just Googling around right now, there seem to be mixed reports of how many casualties there were in the event.
What I also never realized is that some credit the diaspora of the learned classes from Constantinople at this time, with the start of the Renaissance in the west.
Mad Fiddler you do speak the truth that many of us know and are angry and afraid of and that we have been trying to tell our ignorant and uncaring neighbors for years. I have posted and commented so much about these things that people have thought I was obsessed for years. Maybe I am.
We have had for too many years an inept, bungling nanny state for our government. This includes (shown in several ways and cases) a Supreme Court and Justice Dept. that is rampant with people who want a different system than what our Founders envisioned and warned us against. That want to inturpt our Constitution as they see fit. Forgetting our Declaration of Independence entirely.
This last president has shown that you can take a boy out of the hood, pay for and send him to the “best universities” give him special care and consideration and get him elected to public offices but you can not take the hood out of the boy. Or his wife and many, many of his associates and administration. Hose them all down for years in our higher learning institutions with socialism and worse and then we are appalled at how they turned out and how they hate us and America and the foolish, wrongheaded thinking and actions that come as they reach adulthood.
The American Educational System has been broke for many decades. It has become America’s enemy in disguise.
While Obama and his Administration have decided that our borders and our population can consist of not only American Citizens (but by their definition), legal immigrants from anywhere (including states deemed terrorist states) and Illegal immigrants, they are not the first to do so in the last sixty years.
The result is what we have now, just made even worse in the last week.
The contrast between our nonexistent immigrant policy and other nations is not only narrowing but making us the laughing stock of some other nations. We and they have witnessed the rampant immigration of (e)urope, the total collapse of (e)urope’s social and economic structure – not only from their other socialistic practices – but by their total population over-run by immigrants (legal or otherwise). It has destroyed them – along with their other follys – to where they are all now failed states (with the exception of the German State, which also had and has its ever growing problems.)
Mexico and the other South American states AND the many other terrorist leaning nations are conquering the United States slowly, year by year, legal immigrant by illegal immigrant. Our Nation is already going under from failed/misguided socialist/nanny state polices and programs – from our defunct and dishonest two party system – and our populations being dumbed down and generally not caring about and/or being ill-informed and misinformed by our Media and politicians.
Political Correctness and the insane/selfish wants of our politicians to be elected – re-elected, get rich, be favorite sons…etc. has for the last half century or more, brought us to this “End of Nation”..”End of our America as our Founder’s intended”.
Our ever growing nanny state that (has) is poisoning the blacks and now even the other minorities including the poorer white population. The white population that will soon also be a minority in these United States.
Entire generations have been ruined by our government and have no will and no hope to take care of themselves, let alone work. Way too many Americans have become a fat lazy uninformed, not caring population – with our hands out.
The next several years will most likely see something terrible happen that will not be what anyone wants, but what our Founders said could and would happen if Americans were not vigilant.
We have not been vigilant, we have not protected our Republic and it will cost us dearly, and it will be our fault!
Sorry for the long rant but I don’t post much anymore and had a lot to rant about.
Buy More Ammo
Papa Ray
“The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
The typical argument from the Left is that defense spending of any kind must be reduced or curtailed, so it seems nonsensical to have Krugman imploring us to consider funding a multi-trillion defense against space aliens.
The current iteration of the “Left” seems to want to not so much reduce defense spending as to shift spending on military-style assets to the domestic sector to vastly increase the size, scope, and power of policing forces. The most visible aspect at the moment is the proliferation of and enthusiasms for drones, and not just for surveillance; there is already talk of weaponizing them.
The left didn’t start this, as it has been ongoing for quite some time, but this is — or should have been — a cautionary tale of what happens when a security apparatus and expanded government powers are in place when the likely most eggregious abusers gain power. All the protesting and outrage by leftists about the “war machine” and “police state” was simply jealous rage because they weren’t in charge of these instruments. And the CIA they claimed to hate and fear so much? Infested with leftists from its inception.
As to an “alien invasion:” our elitist betters — including Krugman — will welcome these invaders. After all, our annointed progressive elite consider themselves more “evolved” and more “advanced” than the rest of us, and would love nothing more than to harness the greater power of the alien invaders to tighten their control over us savages. They will bow and scrape and explain to the aliens how important it is to put said progressives in total charge of the unruly humans. “We are more like you than we are like these Earthlings!” they will proclaim, and even likely suggest a drastic “population reduction” as a first move to “save humanity.”
@36. Teresita – “Printing money is neutral, all it does is creates more markers for the same amount of tangible wealth.
Printing money is neutral? That’s a declaration on par with 2+2=5. I’ve never observed inflation to be “neutral”. Do you have a real life, (on this planet please), example of this “neutral” state?
Charles @ 45: Thanks for the heads up on your e-book.
I agree that we have some great things coming down the pike, if we can just get the gubmint out of the way and let people who know how to produce do their thing.
62. DLA: Printing money is neutral? That’s a declaration on par with 2+2=5. I’ve never observed inflation to be “neutral”. Do you have a real life, (on this planet please), example of this “neutral” state?
I was talking about real stuff. Wealth. Oil. Homes. Cars. If Detroit makes 15 million cars, it doesn’t matter if we use gold to buy them, or Monopoly money. There’s still 15 million cars. And when I talk about getting the economy moving again, I’m talking about making cars, not the money we use in lieu of barter.
Krugman won the Nobel Award for his work on international trade agreements, not general economic theory.
His fans use the “Nobel” defense to ascribe to him godlike powers of understanding general macroeconomic matters.
This is, of course, the equivalent of saying that a doctor who has spent his entire career as a hand surgeon is an expert in general practice.
Which is to say that it is ridiculous.
To borrow from Tom Lehrer, we no longer discriminate on the basis of race, sex, preference, national origin, or ability.
Re. #23 and #25 – Personally, I think neither the 30-year nor the 30-day war would be appropriate. The 30-minute one would do nicely.
1400 years of war is enough.
Krugman is factally wrong about the state of the economy during WWII. Government spending on the war crowded out the private sector just as Robert Barro’s crowding out princile would predict. We then proceeded to draft the unemployed. What Krugman is proposing is the expenditures without the draft. This would result in a deepening of the depression as public expenditures would crowd out private economic activity.
63. Jimmy J.
Charles @ 45: Thanks for the heads up on your e-book.
I agree that we have some great things coming down the pike, if we can just get the gubmint out of the way and let people who know how to produce do their thing.
…………..
The downside is that the big structural changes in the government have to be made in the next couple years because when prosperity returns (aka other people’s money) people will become complacent even as the rent seekers and the fascists return from the edge.
Romney will likely do all the easy obvious stuff to get the economy back on track mentioned above. But he won’t do any major structural changes unless conservatives win come November and then continuously hold his feet to the fire. He’s a republican; not a conservative. different animals.
OT sort of.
Issa’s Right: Tougher Gun Laws Fast And Furious Goal
http://news.investors.com/article/616213/201206261851/fast-and-furious-gun-control-plot.htm?src=HPLNews
As Issa noted on “This Week,” the Department of Justice announced on April 25, 2011, “right in the middle of the scandal,” that it was requiring some 8,500 gun stores in Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico to report individual purchases of multiple rifles of greater than .22 caliber by law-abiding American citizens to the ATF because such guns are “frequently recovered at violent crime scenes near the Southwest border.”
Like the ATF-supplied guns found next to the body of Brian Terry?
Coincidence? We think not. On July 14, 2010, roughly five months before Agent Terry’s murder, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF’s Phoenix special agent in charge of Fast and Furious. “Bill,” the email read, “can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time? We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun sales. Thanks.”
@33 blert “EVERY time I was speaking, she HAD to over-talk, as if I were her child.”
So, you had hired my ex-wife?
An “arrest record” is not proof of criminal conduct.
That some steroidal goon in a government issued clown outfit “arrests” somebody is proof of nothing.
Charles @ 69: “… the big structural changes in the government have to be made in the next couple years because when prosperity returns (aka other people’s money) people will become complacent …”
Woops! Sudden outbreak of optimism on Aisle 69!
As an analyst pointed out recently, it is difficult to predict the near future, but easy to predict the mid/long term. Governmental ‘borrow & print’ will certainly come to an end. Governmental spending will certainly decline — maybe in the bad way (higher gov’t share of severely reduced GDP), maybe in the good way (lower gov’t share of stabilizing GDP).
Either way, lower gov’t spending is going to be hard on a lot of people. Which means that times will get worse before they get better. And the time scale to the turn-around is probably going to be measured in decades, not years.
There is no need to be concerned about newly-prosperous people becoming complacent within a couple of years.
59 Josh
Helms Deep = Siege of Vienna 9-11-1683
The actual battle featured lots of tunneling, mines…
And a down hill rescue, on horse, with forces assembled from afar by the Poles.
I recently did some work for a Federal agency. Nice old building, one that would require a LOT of rewiring and new duct work, etc, to get it up to current standards.
I was told that they’re selling it to Trump, because, “there’s just no money in the government to upgrade it,” but the private sector could afford to do so. And I though, flippin’ heck, you just had $1 Trillion in stimulus money, surely a chunk of that could have gone to upgrading this building …
Dr. Mabuse, thank you. As absolutely absurd as that was (and it was absurd) it did cheer me up a little. As screwed as we are…I am not currently in a magnetic mine field, although I am on a ship with an idiot at the helm.
To everyone, especially our gracious host, I apologize. I really did not mean to turn a post about Keynesian BS, with a comment about Keynesian BS, with a tangent about how we may never recover from this bout of Keynesian BS, into a discourse on western civ’s debt to the eastern roman empire, and how it was mythologized by Tolkein.
I am sorry for the diversion from the topic. But I did enjoy the discourse.
And for the record, most of the works of the ancient greco roman world that went through the Arab world did not come through the late stage fall of Constantinople. By that time, the Caliphate was in a quite destructive phase, and thought they had nothing left to learn from the infidels. Most of the ancient works that were transmitted through the Muslim world were from the modern day syrian/lebanese areas which were conquered much earlier, when the caliphate recognized they had much to learn from the romans. They were far more open, and far less destructive then. And it is not for nothing that Constantinople fell in 1453 and a great many of the ancient works ‘recovered’ were not recovered in Europe until well after that.
I do not mean to demean the tremendous debt western/enlightenment civilization owes to the men who protected Europe from being conquered by the Arab world, but I do not want to deny the beneficial role of the more moderate period of the Muslim world that sheltered Europe’s history that it otherwise would have lost forever, to all of our detriment. They deserve credit for preserving pieces of Europe’s classical history, even if they also deserve condemnation for destroying its living embodiement in the Byzantine empire.
b @ 74: Helms Deep = Siege of Vienna 9-11-1683
Thanks!
73. Kinuachdrach
There is no need to be concerned about newly-prosperous people becoming complacent within a couple of years.
………
Agreed. It won’t be a couple years. But it won’t be a decade either.
That said, stock markets typically rip upward in their first year if a republican is elected. Just as a fortaste of the future–keep an eye on how the stock market reacts to the supreme court decision on thursday vis a vis obamacare. (My WAG is that it will be gutted but not killed. That is one to three of its central provisions will be killed but the main of the bill let stand. Even with that the stock market will go up in anticipation of obamacare’s eventual demise.)
(even the washington post now is saying Obama is killing the democratic party. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/obama-is-killing-the-democratic-party/2012/06/06/gJQAGCVlJV_blog.html
Likely they’re getting clued to the fact that obama’s amnesty by executive order is killing his support among white democrats in swing states like ohio where there has been a nearly 20 point drop in his support http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/06/26/obama-immigration-pander-costing-him-support-of-white-democrats#comments
if he is elected Romney will be the first president since Reagan who understands something about capital.That will be the way everyone on wall st reads it. That sudden inflection of confidence will precede actual good policies coming from the federal government.
But on top of that the next president will enjoy the tail winds of some secular economic forces.
In the next three or four years oil production is going to go up faster than most anticipate as oil from three or four other fracking fields around the USA the size of Baaken come onstream–plus a half dozen smaller ones. Four–five years from now, something like 3d printing will make it cheaper to produce many of the products now produced in China–back in the USA. So the whole tide of investment flows will change…likely that will be abetted by shrewd policy makers in Washington.
Reagan turned the poor Carter years around pretty quickly. The same thing will happen again under the next republican president. But there were some very tough years from 1979-83. Its not unlikely that we’ll see the same thing in the next3-4 years.
The job of conservatives is something different. Because the trouble with republicans is that they almost always argue with liberals on liberal ground. They accept liberal premises. That is romney will do the things necessary to make the USA prosperous again. But he won’t do anything to stop the institutional rot in the country–because that would be too controversial. The job of conservatives is to set the table in such a way as to make institutional renovation the obvious and appropriate thing to do. How? Always question liberal premises in any argument. Why? Because the premise is always wrong.(btw. that’s what Richard does. Good job mon.)
64. Teresita
Printing money is neutral… I was talking about real stuff. Wealth. Oil. Homes. Cars. If Detroit makes 15 million cars, it doesn’t matter if we use gold to buy them, or Monopoly money.
————–
What about a family who has saved up $10,000 to buy a new car, but discover after a few years of hyperinflation that it’s barely enough to buy a set of tires? Whose income used to be comfortable, but after the price increases caused by inflation can barely scrape by? How many cars will be bought in a land whose middle class used to be wealthy a few years ago, but woke up and discovered they’re poor?
Inflation moves wealth stealthily from those who have monetary assets ($ in the bank, a steady non-index-linked income) to those who have physical assets (homes, cars, gold) or an index-linked income (usually government employees). This makes everyone spend every dollar in their pocket as quickly as they can, because by the end of the month it will be worth half as much. This pushes up prices (quickly) and wages (slowly) making it hard for businesses to plan for the future. It gets the populace in the habit of living from hand to mouth, without saving, and without planning for the future.
There was hyperinflation in Israel (where I live) in the mid 1980s, and it ruined the economy. It was a painful lesson, whose memory is still strong. If the US had gone through such a period recently, you wouldn’t be so blase about the possibility.
Keynes, along with many others had one thing precisely bass ackwards:
Alack of gross aggregate demand is not the cause of a depression, it is the result of same.
ALL, say again< ALL economic contractions are brought about by excessive debt—-too many bills that cannot be paid.
Recovery occurs when enough debt is either paid off or liquidated and not before.
This is why stimulus programs cannot work. They run up the debt load ever higher.
World War II, you say? Yes it reduced unemployment when the Armed Forces went from under 400,000 to over 12 million. And yes, government purchases stimulated ever nook and cranny in the country—–not to mention every crook and nanny as well. But all this was make work. The real recovery was post-war. By that time the National Debt was way up but the total debt burden of the country was a fraction of what it had been. That is why things took off.
The Obama Deal is as big a failure as was the New Deal—–and unlike FDR, BHO does not know how to soothe jangled nerves. So he will be gone (Pray to God!) in much shorter order.
4th & Out…
A quick note about Charles’s comment #78, specifically the reference to 3D printing in his paragraph #8:
3D printing is the gradual layer-by-layer construction of a physical object in three dimensions, generally by data-controlled UV light beams polymerizing a liquid medium to a solid. This was depicted in the first act of the “Jurassic Park III” movie, in a tent where Dr. Alan Grant’s assistant Billy lifts out a solid model of the larynx of a Raptor, which later is used to have a chat with the living raptors regarding the eggs they wish to recover.
I saw one of these in operation as early as 1991 in an industrial design class I visited in the Design School of University of Cincinnati. Must have come a long way in two decades since… Whatever process is used, the detail of the object is inherently dependent on the resolving power of the light beams. I’ve read that some developers have successfully produced working versions of box magazines for semi-auto weapons (I assume they used a steel spring for the followers), which suggests they’re capable of creating pretty darned smooth surfaces now.
(As in other posts, I welcome corrections or updated information from other commenters.)
If I burned down half the Guggenheim and turned the other half into a stable would expropriating a few paintings in the process still get me credit for “preserving Western art”?
Political unity on the Italian Peninsula fractured by the end of 5th Century but the archeological record shows a vibrant and growing economy on the Southern side of the Med, from Egypt to Armenia, into the early 7th Century.
By the end of the 7th Century, within a few generations, thousands of cities and towns had disappeared from the archeological record. The amount of land under cultivation had been reduced to a fraction, indicative of a greatly reduced population.
The production and distribution of papyrus into the Italian Peninsula and East along the Med went to nearly zero during the 7th Century. The preservation and transmission of written technical and cultural information also went to zero because there was nothing to write on.
What single factor destroyed the Greco-Roman population and the centuries old infrastructure of Greco-Roman civilization along the Mediterranean? Islam. Islam. Islam.
It is unfortunate that the hideously distorted work of a handful of rabidly anti-Catholic/Christian English speaking 17th and 18th Century historians have so poisoned the well of knowledge about this period.
Islam did not preserve classical civilization – it ground it into anti human, nihilistic dust.
Peter Boston (#82) “It is unfortunate that the hideously distorted work of a handful of rabidly anti-Catholic/Christian English speaking 17th and 18th Century historians have so poisoned the well of knowledge about this period.” I agree but believe it was more than a handful! It has progress into a tidal wave thru the 19th and 20th!
“Islam did not preserve classical civilization – it ground it into anti human, nihilistic dust.” MEGA DITTO’s… endless proof that Islam came as a destroyer and has done nothing but Destroy all it conquers! Only the Hatred for Christianity is why anyone of knowledge of History and cable of Intelligent thought could think Islam has anything other than Death to offer Man, those with a real and true faith know Islam is an “Anti Christ” religion!
Charles @ 78: “Four–five years from now, something like 3d printing will make it cheaper to produce many of the products now produced in China–back in the USA.”
It is good to be optimistic, but we should temper it with realism.
Yes, it is conceivable that it may be cheaper in the future to produce goods in the US than to make them in China & ship them here. Some have argued that we are already at that point — except for the burden of excessive government regulation in the US.
A while back, there was a news item about a team from MIT (?) which had developed a new battery technology. They wanted to build the batteries in the US. Getting the factory up & running was taking 27 months. The venture capitalists supporting them insisted on building a duplicate factory in China. It was selling products in 12 months. The difference? Excessive US regulations. In areas of rapidly changing new technology, the value of being able to move ahead quickly is more important than small cost differences.
Old Mitt may understand capital, and the economic tide may be in favor of in-sourcing. But until we roll back excessive regulation, the technology, jobs, & tax revenues will continue to go overseas.
Good news is that we can roll back excessive regulation. The bad news is that doing so will gore many an ox — won’t happen until things have first become much worse.
Had anyone of these sage historians (largely anti-Catholic) bothered to find out what happened to the cross currents of Christian contact when the Muslim hordes laid waste to the Christian communities of North Africa and the Middle East? The Muslims effectively severed the links between the Christians of the East and West with their savage hunts for slaves and booty throughout the Mediterranean. It takes an appalling amount of cheek to claim to have preserved learning, when one is responsible for burning the library in the first place. And as an Indian I have to repeat that the so called Arabic numerals are an invention of the Hindus.
Kin: “Good news is that we can roll back excessive regulation. The bad news is that doing so will gore many an ox — won’t happen until things have first become much worse.”
Rolling back the many multiple layers of excessive and punitive legislation will not be easy at all.
There are multiple diffulties:
•There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ill considered harmful regulations. Repealing them one at a time is an enormous task.
• Many Republicans and RINO’s still haven’t gotten the message and will argue to keep them along with the Left. Every single repeal will be a tough fight and there are thousands of them ahead.
• Many of these regulations are on the local and State levels. Think California. Starting a new manufacturing enterprise here in my home state is nearly impossible without heavy political connections.
• And Kin’s point of whose ox is gored is correct. Many of these regulations are there to protect unions or big business, or are the pet projects of big environmental groups. These kind of powerful opponents that won’t give up easy.
Start-ups by definition are “small businesses” in the beginning. Penalize small biz and entreprenuerial start-ups don’t appear.
Truthfully presenting the facts regarding regulatory risk in a business plan insures it doesn’t get funded. Investors/VCs are becoming more aware and better understanding of the shackles built into todays’s start-up environment. They need to complain, in concert, loudly and often.
None of the five companies I started could get funded today having to include a line item called legal / compliance that exceeded $250K, even though the company would be entirely compliant.
Ivan (#85) “as an Indian I have to repeat that the so called Arabic numerals are an invention of the Hindus.” And I would add that India has suffered the worst of Islam.
I received two emails asking who I was (really, I’m not kidding.) These were from two people who evidently were new here at BC because I didn’t recognize their nicks. I’m thinking that there were others who might be curious, so with Richard’s forbearance I am going to post a couple of links that anyone who is interested can look at. That is if anyone is still looking at this post.
I have to admit that this was a big boost to my almost nonexistent ego. Also I know I am not long for this ol’ world, so I am hoping I leave a small, “undefinable” (to most) mark on the Ethernet and just maybe in a few people’s minds. So here is a profile that explains who and what I am:
http://www.blogger.com/profile/11454201360366303944
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0eoE9mi9iw
If you would please watch and listen to my audio I would appreciate it. It sums up my feelings and all my hopes well.
Buy More Ammo
Papa Ray
#89 Papa Ray
Right on, Brother!
I @ 85: Had anyone of these sage historians (largely anti-Catholic) bothered to find out what happened to the cross currents of Christian contact when the Muslim hordes laid waste to the Christian communities of North Africa and the Middle East?
Just to clarify the comments here by regular posters, we know already, the discussion here is really whether the claim that Islam preserved classic literature is 50% a lie, 80% a lie, or 99% a lie?
Yes there are various works that are supposedly known only via their Arabic translations, but this is also because Arabs destroyed non-Arabic libraries and versions! And in many cases the translations were done even *into* Arabic by non-Islamic scholars. In general the closer you look, the higher the number seems to go.
We love analogies here, like the ‘design margin’. Here’s another one. A friend who was a civil engineer was describing a failing bridge. He said the steel beams had gone from the ‘elastic region’, where they could bounce back, to the ‘plastic region’, where they deformed permanently. $1.4T deficits year after year have moved the US economy from the elastic region to the plastic region. There will be no bouncing back. Keynesians are willfully stupid.
“In essence, the marketplace is wiser than the government”.
A perfect point. If I were into tattoo’s I’d have this inscribed across my shoulders. Remember the “stimulus” checks under Bush. Remember “cash for clunkers”. The market did not interpret these programs as a sign of strength but a sign of desperation and acted accordingly. They just refuse to believe that one highly credentialed person (usually themselves) is not wiser than the oceanic forces of the market.
57. sirius: That is a lie. The Arizona law states anyone stopped for cause can be asked about their immigration status. The obvious truth is Mexicans with no legal status are rampant in the border states. If you want to be truthful just say you believe the US has no right of sovereignty and that borders should not exist. But the Mexican government disaggrees with you. Try going into Mexico without authorization. Try demanding government support from them.
Mexicans who want to become US citizens are welcome as far as I am concerned, just as my ancestors were welcomed from Ireland. But they should immigrate LEGALLY, the way my ancestors did from Ireland. They should assimilate into OUR culture bringing with them the flavor of their own. The melting pot concept has made us greater but building enclaves of seperate cultural societies, like in Los Angeles, or Dearborn, Michigan is destructive, devisive and will weaken our nation.
And lying about it is contemptible.
I’m in a Pollyanna mood today. Herewith my response to 86. Unsk
Kin: “Good news is that we can roll back excessive regulation. The bad news is that doing so will gore many an ox — won’t happen until things have first become much worse.”
Rolling back the many multiple layers of excessive and punitive legislation will not be easy at all.
*** Maybe not. A Gordian Knot-cutting approach would work best
There are multiple difficulties:
•There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of ill considered harmful regulations. Repealing them one at a time is an enormous task.
*** First Pres. Romney speech on the economy: Castigate the harm unchecked regulations do. Announce immediate suspension of all regulations issued after, say, 2001. Send a bill to Congress creating a Congressional board responsible for vetting every regulation for cost-benefit (must be some way to make productive use of all those staffers). Make findings available on Internet. Those regs that pass get re-instated. Those that don’t, get trashed.
• Many Republicans and RINO’s still haven’t gotten the message and will argue to keep them along with the Left. Every single repeal will be a tough fight and there are thousands of them ahead.
*** That’s why you can’t employ a piecemeal approach
• Many of these regulations are on the local and State levels. Think California. Starting a new manufacturing enterprise here in my home state is nearly impossible without heavy political connections.
*** T.S. on California, New York, wherever. Other states will take up the business opportunities
• And Kin’s point of whose ox is gored is correct. Many of these regulations are there to protect unions or big business, or are the pet projects of big environmental groups. These kind of powerful opponents that won’t give up easy.
*** Let them scream, complain on MSNBC, CNN, etc. Their credibility is near gone. Keep reminding the citizenry of regulatory horror stories such as the EPA snail darter reg. that’s killed agriculture in the Central Vally. There’s a rich source of horror stories.
Can be done.
In the US civilian nuclear power industry, the government requires background checks and mandates that current employees report any run in with the law to their employers.
So, do we want felons working around our nuclear reactors – or not?
92. Rick
We love analogies here, like the ‘design margin’. Here’s another one. A friend who was a civil engineer was describing a failing bridge. He said the steel beams had gone from the ‘elastic region’, where they could bounce back, to the ‘plastic region’, where they deformed permanently. $1.4T deficits year after year have moved the US economy from the elastic region to the plastic region. There will be no bouncing back. Keynesians are willfully stupid.
…………
Disagree. Death concentrates the mind wonderfully.
On the subject of Islam and civilization, the New English Review recently published a series of articles from Emmet Scott’s new book, “Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited.” Interesting stuff. You can find the articles here:
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/102792/sec_id/102792
A few have been taken down in order to push book sales, but some are still up.
On the subject of stoicheion and smoking. Stoi, a woman of my intimate acquaintance recently got off the sticks (after 35 years) by using an electronic cigarette. Feeds you vaporized nicotine and lets you have the pleasurable mechanics of smoking: sucking it in and blowing it out. Might be worth a try. In any case, you are a warrior my cyber-friend and a fighter. Stay strong. My prayers are with you.
Very interesting column and comments.
Those who try to use World War II as an example of Keynes’ success, usually ignore the fact that 14 million men were taken out of the economy into the military for five years. That created a labor shortage. Secondly, we borrowed the money for war spending from ourselves in the form of war bonds. That avoided inflation and the asset bubbles we have seen the past 30 years.
86. Unsk
Trex answered your points but I would like to add a little something.
ALL the federal rules and regulations are in the federal code;
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionCfr.action?collectionCode=CFR
Federal code is the jargon, the technical title is “Code of Federal Regulations (Annual Edition)”. It is automated. I had a consulting contract to automate parts of it. The final copy is produced every year( federal year, which starts Oct 01. I think. or at least it used to. That can be changed if enough politicians see a reason to). That final version is copied, published and used as a base for next years federal code.
GPO KEEPS the master copy. All congress has to do is pass a bill making the 2000 federal code the 2013 federal code and it is. GPO then prints them up and sends them out. Whoopie, we now have new laws, same as the old laws.
I picked 2000 out of thin air. Congress should go back to the last year where the budget balanced, which was during the Clinton administration.
So removing all those rules and regulations would be dirt simple. A LOT of the politicians that created them are no longer in office. There would still be vested interests but that is inevitable.
94 SpeakEasy. Easy there. I think you seriously misinterpreted what I was saying. I was replying sardonically to an earlier posting about subjecting non-offending citizens to unreasonable searches and seizures (The subject was airports.)
I did not mean to impugn the Arizona law, only to suggest the Supreme Court appears in some way more jealous of guarding the ‘rights’ of illegal aliens than those of the rest of us.
Talk about getting your wires crossed. Not to mention people.
Rick “$1.4T deficits year after year have moved the US economy from the elastic region to the plastic region.”
Also related is the proportional limit where the stress is proportional to the strain after which the relationship goes non-linear. In the case of the US economy we are definitely in the non-linear region where the effects may not be directly proportional to the stimulus, ie; increased government spending will not likely yield Keynesian effects.
“Congressional board responsible for vetting every regulation for cost-benefit ”
The analysis would have to be refined from cost-benefit to value. Not much cost benefit to keeping the granny alive but there is arguably value. Everything could have a score, however, the crux of the problem now is that the USG does not for that matter value money or budgets therefore cost-benefit isn’t even considered now.
A practical example might be this:
EPA budget equals (guess) – 10 billion dollars
Cost of enacting Zero Emission policy = 900 billion dollars
result; the EPA is out of business. DO not write regulation checks that your budget bank can’t cover.
Trex and Stoi- Great , I’m all for partying like it’s 1999 , 1987 or even 1973 for that matter. If only the Pubs would go for it.
The problem is most pubs won’t , unless there is a groundswell to do it.
103. Unsk
In keeping with my Pollyanna mood today: I count on adding more Constitutionalists to the House, and more of a better class of Senators.
If President Romney wishes to show himself as a game-changer, he can do much to create and feed the groundswell.
If President Romney wishes to show himself as a game-changer, he can do much to create and feed the groundswell.
It’s true that if Romney gets in and gets a Republican House and (heaven help us) Senate, he will be sitting atop a crisis point that will really allow him to enact major changes. Massive cuts in budgets, regs and bureaucracy. More or less shut down Education, Labor, Energy. Drill, baby, drill along with manufacture, baby, manufacture (cut cut cut the regs). Shutting the door on immigration and chasing out the illegals. Sensible regs for the banksters. So much more.
But will he do any of this? I suspect if the Pubs win, they will do what they did the last time they had all the power: fill up the trough with pork. And I fully expect Romney will get us into yet another pointless war, assuming Obama doesn’t get us there first.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe deep inside that RINO seeming exterior, Mitt has a burning passion to save America and knows what needs to be done. He could be a hero.
Yeah, I wish.
105. peterike
“But will he do any of this? I suspect if the Pubs win, they will do what they did the last time they had all the power: fill up the trough with pork. And I fully expect Romney will get us into yet another pointless war, assuming Obama doesn’t get us there first.”
A bit of optimism if I may…
You correctly note that Mitt cannot, even if he wanted to, ignore the state of affairs without risking catastrophe on several fronts. Obamacare, for example, will not work even with a constitutional ok from the SCOTUS. It cannot work, and the current laws must be changed.
Furthermore, let us imagine we were designing the optimal candidate in 2006. If we confine our set of problems to that of the economy, what background would we want in our optimal candidate?
He would have to have intimate knowledge of how finance is supposed to work and how it works in real life, that is, the monstrous form it currently takes. He would have to know what’s wrong with the phrase “profit-earnings ratio.” He would have to be familiar with all of the ways Congress has graced the biggest banks and finance co’s with perqs, protection, and legal graft.
In short, Mitt is certainly knowledgeable enough to know how the evil sausage of our FIRE economy is made. It may take a Nixon-to-China like event for him to make significant changes to the menu but half of the job is knowing all of the ingredients.
peterike @ 105 ponders: “But will he [Romney] do any of this?”
That’s the $64,000 question, or at least it was when $64k was more than an ex-President’s speaking fee. Brings me back to the issue of diagnosis.
Most people these days seem to recognize that something has gone wrong — even (with apologies to our host) many of the Ivy League grads in charge have overcome their conditioning sufficiently to recognize that all is not well. Krugman knows there is something wrong, but he has mis-diagnosed the problem and therefore wants more Keynesianism. Some, even in this parish, think the solution requires tumbrils for bankers; that too, with respect, is a mis-diagnosis.
If Romney & what Subotai calls the ‘Institutional Republicans’ find themselves the accidental beneficiaries of disgust with their predecessors, what will be their diagnosis of the problem they are then charged with solving?
Is it too cynical to suggest that they will, in their infinite wisdom backed by the affirmative votes of around one third of US citizens, diagnose the previous problem as having been the lack of themselves in charge? Once they are in charge, they are likely to assume that all problems have therefore been magically solved. And Armageddon will arrive on the same schedule as before.
The challenge for US voters is to replace the likes of Obama, Reid, & Pelosi — while making sure that their Institutional successors arrive with a very clear message that we see them too as part of the problem. They need to have an incentive to diagnose the problems facing the US properly. And that diagnosis begins with over-regulation.
Stoicheion re smoking – first, great on getting down to 4 on a good day; Peterike has an excellent point – those electronic cigarettes – Green Smoke is a good one – has a variety of strengths – exchangeable cartridges, including zero nicotine, it actually lights up one end, you exhale a non-toxic vapor. Smoking is a favorite topic of mine, so I’ll stop here. Re costs of surgery – one of the commenters mentioned discounts by paying cash – as I recall that is exactly what Rush Limbaugh did when he had that heart attack in Hawaii – he said the discount was well worth it. You’ve got my best wishes and prayers, both you and Papa Ray. Knight1
105. peterike
If President Romney wishes to show himself as a game-changer, he can do much to create and feed the groundswell.
It’s true that if Romney gets in and gets a Republican House and (heaven help us) Senate, he will be sitting atop a crisis point that will really allow him to enact major changes. Massive cuts in budgets, regs and bureaucracy. More or less shut down Education, Labor, Energy. Drill, baby, drill along with manufacture, baby, manufacture (cut cut cut the regs). Shutting the door on immigration and chasing out the illegals. Sensible regs for the banksters. So much more.
But will he do any of this? I suspect if the Pubs win, they will do what they did the last time they had all the power: fill up the trough with pork. And I fully expect Romney will get us into yet another pointless war, assuming Obama doesn’t get us there first.
*** Such nihilism even before Romney has had a chance to disappoint us all.
Better to announce resolve to keep his feet, and Congress’ feet, to the proverbial fire. We all saw what happened a decade ago. Why must we then assume that that will happen again? Sounds tantamount to throwing in the towel before the match has started.
While over at the Real Clear Politics website I read a beatdown of the Obama Administration by Victor David Hanson. One paragraph kind of leaped out at me:
“As we see in New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin, the cure for the present economic malaise is not rocket science — a curbing of the size of government, a revision of the tax code, a modest rollback of regulation, reform of public employment, and holding the line on new taxes. Do that and public confidence returns, businesses start hiring, and finances settle down. Do the opposite — as we see in Mediterranean Europe, California, or Illinois over the last decade — and chaos ensues.”
My belief is that we are being governed by the equivalent of a religious cult of not terribly bright people. People who have no character and whose sense of self worth comes only from a “cause” not achievements.
WWII didn’t get us out of the Depression. There just weren’t many civilians who had a need for a Liberty ship, a Sherman tank, a 155mm howitzer shell, or a Liberator bomber.
What they government did do was increase demand, by paying workers producing the ships, tanks, shells and bombers. Demand for consumer goods went up quickly, supply on the goods people wanted (say nylon stockings) did not go up, and in fact, the resources used for war (nylon ropes to pull gliders) were diverted there, rather than to consumer goods, so there were shortages of consumer goods (nylon stockings) where prices were not allowed to increase.
And so, people did without consumer goods. After the war, the government got smaller, and there was a boom.
Kin @ 107 hits the nail on the head. To solve a problem you must first diagnose it.
The Institutional Repubs simply refuse to fully diagnose the problem. The reason; a proper diagnosis often leads to an obvious solution, and that obvious solution would force the Repubs to actually act in the interests of the country , not in their own self serving interests.
The problem is that there is too much government intervention in the economy in terms of over regulation, corruption, tilting the playing field for their cronies, misallocation of resources and destructive taxes. The Institutional Repubs are up to their eyeballs in cronyism, corruption and playing footsy with the left. The Institutionals, Pub and Dem, more than kinda like the way things are.
Also, looking at the issue from another angle, to build the groundswell of support for massively cut spending and regulation, the Pubs would have to come up with a coordinated, convincing narrative of why the country must endure the extraordinary goring of oxen necessary to achieve these cuts. Again, that reason would need a diagnosis of the problem to be effective.
In the end, to be effective it will come down to finally telling the Public the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But the Pubs won’t likely do that because many of the oxen to be gored if they told the whole truth would be Republican.
Interesting speculation that the reason the Obama admin has turned morose about tomorrow is that they have been told the results by their once white house counsel now supreme justice elena kagan.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77468.html
Obama administration official steps down before SCOTUS ruling
obamacare doesn’t have a severability clause. it was there in the beginning but not at the end of its passage through congress.
what that means legally is that if the justices strike down one portion of the bill they have to strike down all of it….I’m reading however, that this has been ignored in the past. but judging by the behavior of the obama administration its not going to be good for O.
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2012/06/27/what-do-you-bet-that-if-this-is-true-the-source-is-elena-kagan/
The problem with Republican reform is the mainstream media. Everyday will be a cultural Armageddon on the news. The republicans balance their need to be loved with their desire to do good things. Consider the GWB brand of so called Compassionate Conservatism. A brand that has not been appropriately debauched as yet. But through GWB the GOP was thoroughly bludgeoned with gas prices and unemployment worries. Got that, $1.85 a gallon gas and 5.5% unemployment were the end of the world to Dems just 4 years ago and the media amplified the message when they were not promoting their own paroxysms. There was much worse of course, the war in the ME and what not but the Left managed to skewer even the benign. When Mitt is anointed, and he will be, just wait for Occupy the poison pill to make their resurgence. Cindy Shehan will crawl out of the rock she has been living under, Barbara Streisand will come back in style and suddenly the war in Afghanistan is going to be a legacy of shame, all the fault of the GOP. The Left is aching to dump their failures on the GOP just like the Democratic establishment’s 10 year war in Viet Nam suddenly became Nixon’s War. We live in a nation of hecklers, leftist agitators, and anarchists all ensconced in the hallowed halls of academia and the media. The government is chocked to the ceilings with Democrat operatives who will defy the law, leak classified information, and generally act to undo the Republican administrations efforts. The have shown that they can succeed by sheer audacity and numbers. No, I am afraid we need a different strategy and blaming the Bolshevik revolution on Mitt aint gonna cut it. They can start by gutting the Commies out of the State Department, the DOD and the CIA. Remember Porter Goss.
Here is the scotus blog comments as the justices read off their opinions.
http://scotusblog.wpengine.com/
The individual mandate survives as a tax.
So the mandate is constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts joins the left of the Court.
Chief Justice Roberts’ vote saved the ACA.
The bottom line: the entire ACA is upheld, with the exception that the federal government’s power to terminate states’ Medicaid funds is narrowly read.
The Medicaid provision is limited but not invalidated.
The money quote from the section on the mandate: “Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it. “
Wow. So they got to Roberts, soon to win the Strange New Respect award.
So much for the easy way out. Looks like we’ll have to take the Lilliputian approach, otherwise known as Cloward-Piven.
The Court does not reach severability issues, having upheld the mandate 5-4.
So the mandate is constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts joins the left of the Court.
Chief Justice Roberts’ vote saved the ACA.
In opening his statement in dissent, Kennedy says: “In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety.
Wow. The nation is splintered. Did this just hand Romney the victory?
John Adams in a speech to the military in 1798 warned his fellow countrymen stating,
“While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams is a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights and our second President.
http://bit.ly/KOOXEh
Here is the opinion in the health care cases: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
Oh brother, now we have to trust and rely on romney to kill this beast.
I see we have another “conservative” justice who has “grown” in office. How sickening.
Roberts will never live down this vote. He is marked for the rest of his days as a traitor.
Romney better put on his “A” game. At least he is now all in for repeal. He realizes that with Obamacare in force, more than 50% of the economy will be in the hands of our corrupt crony overlords.
The opinion in the health care cases is here. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
For readers of the opinion, a quick look at pp. 31 and 32 of Roberts’ opinion tells you why the Court is sustaining the individual mandate as a tax measure.
I am reading at REDSTATE that as a tax, the Republicans don’t need cloture or 60 votes in the Senate to bring it up for repeal. If that is true, it’s the only good news of this crappy decision.
Again from the scotusblog
………………..
Essentially, a majority of the Court has accepted the Administration’s backup argument that, as Roberts put it, “the mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition — not owning health insurance — that triggers a tax — the required payment to IRS.” Actually, this was the Administration’s second backup argument: first argument was Commerce Clause, second was Necessary and Proper Clause, and third was as a tax. The third argument won.
http://scotusblog.wpengine.com/
Take a quick look at Footnote 11, which is on page 44 of the slip opinion: Those subject to the individual mandate may lawfully forgo health insurance and pay higher taxes, or buy health insurance and pay lower taxes. The only thing that they may not lawfully do is buy health insurance and not pay the resulting tax.
Cows on a dairy farm don’t control their health care. They get the vet services the farmer decides is in his best interest. Why should tax-cows on the tax farm expect any different?
from the scotus blog
http://scotusblog.wpengine.com/
Take a quick look at Footnote 11, which is on page 44 of the slip opinion: Those subject to the individual mandate may lawfully forgo health insurance and pay higher taxes, or buy health insurance and pay lower taxes. The only thing that they may not lawfully do is buy health insurance and not pay the resulting tax.
Make that read.
The only thing that they may not lawfully do is not buy health insurance and not pay the resulting tax.
To all youze smarty-pants on Wretchard’s comments board, before you bludgeon yourselves silly with wiffel-sticks over the Court’s Obamacare ruling, please pause to ponder the meta-effects of the ruling. In my view, the SCOTUS has done American patriots several favors in its Obamacare Ruling.
1. the court threw the ‘mandate’ issue back to the Congress. If it’s a tax, then Congress can now repeal it. And you know who controls the Congress.
2. by framing the ‘mandate’ as a tax, they made it an elective, rather than a mandatory, payment, thus making its adoption fair-game for this year’s election campaigns. Appearances are Obama ‘wants to raise taxes’ now. Signs are Americans don’t want any new taxes, and Romney can capitalize on this trend.
3. the court dispelled the slander that it is ‘political.’ This rumor was to preemptively undermine the court’s credibility on the assumption that it would rule Obamacare unconstitutional. The court did no such thing, and the handwringing and ink tears spilled in the globe’s Left-wing media looks ridiculous now.
4. this damages the Left. The Left will be forced to relitigate it’s “universal” healthcare agenda in the US congress – their favorite forums, media and the mob, have been relegated to second place behind Boehner’s house. They will still engorge their media organs with their clients’ monies in a bid to sway the People’s House, but in the end Democrat(ic) Party representatives will be forced to vote on-the-record for tax-increases.
We have today’s Supreme Court to thank for this. It calls the chickens home to roost: Nancy Pelosi’s faberge’d facade for them back in ’09 (“We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it!”) was supposed to relieve them of that electoral burden. The court has just called them back to the floor for a revote!
The Party’s Over
The party’s over,
It’s time to call it a day,
No matter how you pretend, you knew it would end
This way. . . .
http://preview.tinyurl.com/72cvcjb
Do you ever get the feeling we’re fighting a sort of Crowd Entropy?
c @ 123: The opinion in the health care cases is here. http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
The dissent is also in there (starting around page 127), and the critical item I think is around p 141-153, which is that IF the government’s argument that the mandate “is really just a tax” were valid, then IT WOULD HAVE TO SAY SO IN THE BILL. It does not.
So Roberts has taken it upon himself to rewrite the bill! He says he does this as an “interpretation”. The conservative dissent says he may not do this.
Roberts is a fool, and again, this decision goes beyond a normal difference of opinion, but the “liberals” are speaking gibberish, violating precedent, acting without basis, and imposing the whims of five guys in robes on the American people.
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Rush Limbaugh is all over this very point right now like ugly on an ape.
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Actually, the dissent sort of rambles on the way to this point, tho it apparently makes some others as well, but Rush is doing a better job discussing it than the dissent does in both form and content … tho I suppose not everything Rush says would stand close examination, enough would to really be good. This is the kind of stuff that Rush does best.
Roberts could have struck down the mandate and sent it back to Congress with the “advice” that it would pass muster as a tax. He didn’t do that. SCOTUS rewrote the law on the fly so Congress would not have to deal with it, and the public opposition now that everybody knows what Obamacare is all about.
This used to be a Constitutional Republic. It is not now.
Good points, Steve. A correlate to what you’ve said is that freedom cannot be handed out but must be fought for and won.
I refer you all to the current Fortnight for Freedom campaign being shepherded by the Bishops in response to the H.H.S. mandate. Like it or not, the Catholic Church is taking the tiller in the fight to preserve freedom and, by implication, America.
We should all be clear on the moral and theological nature of the battle being waged – now and for all eternity. The central conflict is against a neo-pagan culture of death and a false holy trinity of Pragmatism, Utilitarianism, and Consumerism.
This is an epic struggle, and the human drama could not permit it to be resolved easily.
128. steveaz
Congratulations! You win this week’s “Pretzel Logic” award, and demonstrate once again that the human capacity for rationalization is nearly infinite.
Congress is going to jump right on that legislative remedy and revote you mentioned, right after they pass the budget… /g
This week’s score so far: TWANLOC=2, Constitution/Rule of Law=0
It sickens me that ROBERTS joined the Leftists on the court. What the hell?
“Put not your trust in princes,” folks.
Obamacare is the President’s baby. The question is whether Justice Roberts sliced the baby into two halves – or whether he circumcised it.