The Way Our World Works
The Strange Thing About Nemesis…
…is that the deity picks its victims on the basis of irony and arrogance. For every media-frenzy about ethical lapses of columnist Armstrong Williams taking Bush administration money for hawking No Child Left Behind, there is a Jonathan Gruber, the MIT go-to pundit on health care, who raked in $400,000 from the Obama administration for … hawking ObamaCare.
For every racially insensitive Trent Lott, Senate party leader, there is a racially insensitive Harry Reid, Senate party leader. For every illegitimacy story about Levi Johnston and Sarah Palin’s daughter, there is a John Edwards’ love child. For every supposed Bush fabrication, there is Barack Obama on You Tube swearing he will air all the health care debate on C-SPAN (sort of like his old public campaign financing promises, or closing Gitmo within a year, or getting out of Iraq by March, 2008, or …).
OK…
But, of course, by now you readers protest!— why haven’t we heard of Gruber, why did the media go easy for so long on Edwards (and his complicit wife), why is Harry Reid still majority leader?
The answer is that those on the left are moralists, smarter people who pass up their own personal agendas to help the community. They think of society, not self, and so when they err, they do it under stress, in accidental fashion, and with no lasting significance — not like their selfish Neanderthal cousin conservatives, for whom transgression is a valuable window into their flawed souls. Bushisms became a media pastime, but no one suggests that a president who says Cinco de Quatro, or 57 states, or references the “Austrian” language is a Dan Quayle wrestling with potato.
That Enigmatic Joblessness?
We are still at double-digit unemployment in December. But I am relieved that it was not 15% thanks to Obama’s various stimuli programs, bailouts and health care initiatives that saved us.
Is this Ivy League brilliance? For three years as candidate and now as president, Obama targeted the productive small business and entrepreneur class. They should be “patriotic,” “pay their fair share,” and “spread the wealth” to the more deserving. If they made over $250, 200, or was it 150K?, they should pay higher state, federal, payroll, inheritance and now health care taxes. From time to time, Obamians, like Anita Dunn, and Van Jones, referenced the great redistributist and killer Mao, or the greed of “white people.”
I could go way on, but you get the picture. Somehow in such a landscape, the family dentist, small trucking operator, and insurance agency owner were supposed to go out and hire more people, buy equipment, and work a little harder, when they a) don’t know how high their taxes will climb, and b) accept that they are targeted by this president and so expect that any new health-care, energy, or education initiative will come at their expense.
Jobs, you see, are largely instead made by the federal government, which borrows about $100,000 per employed in some grand new “millions of green jobs” or “remaking America” plan that puts more of us on the unfireable, always promoted federal payroll.
“Nothing had destroyed the reputation of Yale-Harvard-Princeton more than the present administration.”
The Ivy Leagues were bad enough during the early 1950s when Bill Buckley wrote, God and Man at Yale. The situation worsened considerably after these schools implemented their affirmative action programs in the mid to late 1960s. Blacks and other politically protected minorities were the first beneficiaries of the newly established inflated grades mandates. Shortly afterwards, however, the white students also jumped aboard the gravy train—and an Ivy League liberal arts degree soon became a dubious accomplishment. Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield candidly admitted that he feels compelled to inflate the grades of his students. Nobody bats an eyelash. It’s a ho-hum everyday thing. Barack Obama most assuredly took advantage of this decline in standards. Why else would he hide his grades? Today’s Ivy League institutions are often nothing less than scam operations.
Mood Music.
The piece below is from the NY times.
“And so perhaps the biggest change Obama has made is what one former adviser calls the “mood music” — choice of language, outreach to Muslims, rhetorical fidelity to the rule of law and a shift in tone from the all-or-nothing days of the Bush administration. He is committed to taking aggressive actions to disrupt terrorist cells, aides said, but he also considers his speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in June central to his efforts to combat terrorism. “If you asked him what are the most important things he’s done to fight terrorism in his first year, he would put Cairo in the top three,” Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, told me.
There are two options: a) this is spin that is meant to appease the left, which we will mean continuing the schizophrenic foreign policy. Or b) Obama truly believes that his Cairo speech was in the top three in 2009 to FIGHT terrorism. That is the far worse option. Isn’t there constitutional procedure to get him out of Office
With respect to the Nemesis portion of this blog entry, don’t forget the “fundamental attribution error” double standard: the reason for your failures are part of who you are; the reason for my failures are external to the real me (i.e., not my fault).
Speaking of double standards, wouldn’t you think those on the left who enjoyed psychoanalyzing George W. Bush’s “daddy issues” would have a field day with Obama (abadoned by mom, dad and stepdad)? I’m still waiting for that book.
Well if there is a metaphorical Gun Fight at the OK Corral down the road, rest assured that Obama will pull out a squirt pistol–whilst the opposition will use an AK 47–metaphorically speaking that is.
You would think that Bernanke, an expert on the Depression, would see the similarity to what Roosevelt did in 1933-37. Others have seen and written about it.
It is a well-worn axiom that Wall Street hates uncertainty.
All business hates uncertainty.
But the Obama Administration only cultivates and adds to uncertainty.
The Obama Uncertainty Factor probably adds 2-4% to the unemployment rate.
Since the Obama campaign accepted $970,000 from Goldman Sachs employees and GS PACs, you’d think Obama would get that message. He is – after all – so, so smart.
And on that Ivy League thing, Sen. Tom Colburn is an MD from the University of Oklahoma and has a business degree from Oklahoma State. He’s had *actual* experience in business and the professions. And he can’t be demonized as a dope as Sarah Palin has been. He’d smash Pres. Obama to pieces in a debate.
Don’t forget Peter Orzag. His girlfriend was three months pregnant when he dumped her for broadcast journalist.
Nice guy.
“Do not hire any more cabinet officials or government agency heads with Ivy League degrees. Enough already.”
Yes, enough already. To many people the bloom is off the rose with the ‘ivy league’. They seem to have turned into highly expensive mills for the out of touch and privileged. Anything other than a degree in the hard sciences from these schools seems to have been de-valued to the point of worthlessness.
Nemesis does not give up so easily. A president who runs against the country is inviting the electorate to return the favor. But this is not without serious costs, nor is it just a matter of national politics. In the meantime, the deficit soars, the economy is impeded and the adventurists of all stripes around the planet won’t let the opportunities go unexploited.
Did America really need to get sick in order to discover who she really is?
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This applies to other situations than physics.
One nice unintended consequence of the Obama presidency…after reading your suggestions this time professor, the president is bringing out your sense of humor.
Just a suggestion. Instead of Obamians, how about the feminine nominative plural of Obama,i.e. Obamae? Just wondering.
Semper Fi and thanks to my Latin teacher of many moons ago.
P.S. Also a graduate of an Ivy, Penn ,bit far from a elitist. Just a retired Marine officer.
Just a suggestion. Instead of Obamians, how about the feminine nominative plural of Obama,i.e. Obamae? Just wondering.
Semper Fi and thanks to my Latin teacher of many moons ago.
P.S. Also a graduate of an Ivy, Penn ,but far from a elitist. Just a retired Marine officer.
Bah hah hah hah hah.
Surely you jest VDH. Obama will no sooner adjust his approach along the lines you suggest than he would praise our real – real life heroes that struggle every day against this temporary tide.
Tighten your spurs and check your cinch – this bronc bucks!
Zeus-like in council…
Your posts are always great, but these past couple have been simply outstanding.
IBD’s Politics and Markets blog is noting today that you called the Obama implosion in February of last year. http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politics/1143-hansons-prediction-holding-up-well
Gosh, it’s almost as if you’ve come across instances of all this stuff happening before or something. If only there was some way people could learn of the pitfalls of human nature so as to try to avoid some of the more obvious in the future. Oh well. Now, where’d I put that copy of “Who Killed Homer?”…
#4 – rather than worry about Ivy Leaguers, forget about the Goldman Sach’ers. Support small business, rein in the financiers. Race is nothing but a peripheral issue. Whatever the race, color or creed, its all about socioeconomic class now. So many distractions while the greedy get greedier. Time for Obama to come out swinging rather appeasing. He ought to look after the people who elected him rather than the monied interests who have no loyalty other than to themselves.
My friend that introduced me to VDH has been ill with a flu bug. I have emailed him this medicinal article!
I am positivie it will make him feel better.
No mispoken President will be considered a “… Dan Quayle wrestling with a potato.”. So true, so funny, and so blinking refreshing!!
Hanson for President – nadda…. VDH for King of America … no need – he’s already the noblest public voice in the country, and wel beyondl its borders!!
Long live the King!
Now for the $64 question. Do these people actually know what they are almost certain to bring about?
If so, or if they are in denial, then what we have is an administration with a death wish for itself and all others it can take down.
I imagine ancient Greece experienced something like this, but my knowledge of the classics is to skimpy for me to say.
What I am reminded of is Imperial Japan and its determination to have all the citizenry
join in One Great Banzai Charge.
Scary, ain’t it?
Ah yes, the liberals think of society, not themselves. The labors of the elite classes on behalf of the little people have no end, and the little people all too often fail to show proper deference or recognition of the great sacrifices the best and the brightest show on their behalf. No wonder President Obama is so tired.
It is statist (liberal, communist, democrat, take your pick; they’re essentially identical these days) faith that jobs are to be properly created only by government, for the little people cannot be trusted not to damage the environment, pick on homosexuals, and be just generally not enlightened without complete government supervision of every aspect of their pathetic little lives out there in fly over country. That it is the little people who provide the money for all government jobs and that money supply is not inexhaustible does not enter into statist thinking which allows no doubts about the orthodoxy of their faith. California is a wonderful and instructive case in point. Liberal politicians have raped a formerly prosperous state into a near comatose condition and when they recognize that a problem exists, they decry the little people who have passed laws that won’t allow them to enact even more ruinous taxes and regulations.
Statists are very good at the rhetoric of support for the common man, but they care nothing for individuals. Some of this is simply political calculation, saying whatever is necessary to win elections, but most is at the heart of the statist philosophy, which is that the state, regulated by proper policies formulated by the elite, is supreme. Among those unshakeable beliefs and policies is that it is the rightful job of government to take care of everyone. Remember that “everyone” is a nebulous mass of victim groups that does not include individuals, particularly individuals who do not want the statist’s smothering embrace. Statist policies have, for the statist, several positive effects. They greatly increase dependence on entitlements; they greatly increase dependence on statist government; they require defacto income redistribution from the productive to the dependent. And so we see the paradoxical spectacle of liberals wailing about the poor, but doing very little to help actual poor people, while conservatives give freely of their money and time to help others. Many liberals aren’t consciously cruel, they just imagine that a vast, benevolent government is caring for the poor and that they, therefore, are excused.
Sarah Palin frightens statists because she threatens all of their orthodoxies. A woman who doesn’t need liberal protection? A women who doesn’t view abortion as a sacrament? A women who is–gasp!–a conservative? A women who actually touches–shudder–guns? A woman who is married to a man who actually does–eeek!–manual labor? A woman who seems to want to help individuals–little people individuals–to keep their own money so that it can’t be redistributed to those more worthy?
As Dr. Hanson so resolutely uses history to help us avoid mistakes, we should remember the example of the last group of statists who exercised absolute power on behalf of “the people,” “the workers,” the little people like us. It cost trillions of dollars, a half a century of warfare, and hundreds of millions of lives to expose their utter contempt for the rights, the very lives of the individual and to consign it to the dustbin of history. President Obama and his cronies would like nothing more than to resurrect the crusade to help the little people, and he’ll do it by first giving us health care of the kind that has been shown to be a humanitarian disaster and abject failure wherever it has been imposed.
If we’re foolish enough to allow the elite to impose servitude on us, perhaps we deserve it. Perhaps America was a good idea whose time is past. Or perhaps Nemesis is at work even now. Pray that the cost in lives of Obama’s fall isn’t too great.
How do we start a recall of this man?
The danger to our society is self evident.
Prof. Hanson said:
You value contractors, surgeons, engineers and pilots WAAAY too low!
Those with Ivy League degrees need to be sent to jobs like “broken backed toilet cleaner”.
Old joke: How many lawyers does it take to stop a bullet? None. When the guns come out, the lawyers disappear.
There will be no gunfight at the OK corral, metaphorical or otherwise.
Also, it’s not just that the Ivy-league schools offer over-rated educations. It’s also that they offer civics which condemn America, rather than exalt it.
They condemn Christianity (this is a Christian nation), so they fail to teach proper morals and values. Christianity teaches that we are inherently evil, so we must be taught what good is. Liberals believe that people will naturally choose good. This is a patently untrue belief.
So we have business leaders who say, AND MEAN, “It’s just business; nothing personal.”, as if right and wrong have nothing to do with it! We have political leaders who know or care nothing of or for our Constitution or history. “It’s just the system; the way the game is played.” Again, as if right or wrong have nothing to do with it!
It is really how we came to this pass. “Our form of government is designed for a moral people. It is wholly unsuited to any other.” (Sorry, forgot which founder said that.) We have become immoral as a people, and so, have lost our form of government.
One question posed was, do we have to have everything ruined for us to appreciate it (or something belike on the previous page)? Why, yes! Men won’t change until they have no other option. This is why God allows bad things to happen, because there are no atheists in foxholes.
Revelations speaks of these times. The Bear has defeated the Eagle. We reduced them, but they have destroyed us with their subversion from within. Marxism has become dominant here, or rather, its devotees are in charge.
Israel is alone. This generation shall not pass away from this Earth after the re-establishment of Israel, before we see the end times. Soon will come the Rapture. Then, with all the good people gone, the slaughter will ensue. The 100 million man Army shall come from the East. NBC weapons shall be used in abundance. Four horsemen: Famine, Plague, Pestilence, and War. It comes.
It is all prophesied. Some people just wll not change until there are only foxholes… and God will be found within those foxholes. Pray that you and your children are right with God before the Rapture comes, for what comes after will be, literally, Hell on Earth. The end actually IS nigh, for the Eagle lies defeated. Our death IS the death of Liberty. All the rest follows.
Question for the Professor: is there any precedent in history for the Cloward-Piven strategy? Did anyone try to exhaust their own culture from the inside, in the vain hope that what was left would be worth taking over? And if so, how did Nemesis reward them?
I think, my American cousins, that you guys are in deep shit.
I don’t like to see it. Our two countries have been the closest of allies for a hundred years. I just hope you can drag yourselves out of the mess you seem to have found yourselves in.
Regards
James from Melbourne, OZ
#19 Föhrenwald47
Perhaps unfortunately, there is no such thing as a recall election for the president. He could only be removed by being found guilty of one or more “high crimes and misdemeanors” in an impeachment trial by the Senate.
Cornhead wrote:
It is a well-worn axiom that Wall Street hates uncertainty.
All business hates uncertainty.
But the Obama Administration only cultivates and adds to uncertainty.
The Obama Uncertainty Factor probably adds 2-4% to the unemployment trate.
Since the Obama campaign accepted $970,000 from Goldman Sachs employees and GS PACs, you’d think Obama would get that message.
There is certainty in uncertainty as well, and an investment bank with inside information, as Goldman Sachs is in a position to take advantage of that uncertainty with an appropriate short term strategy – it may be bad in the long term, but in the short run they can make money hand over fist playing on everyone else’s uncertainty. It’s an ugly game, but someone will always do it if they can get away with it.
Once again, sir, you have struck gold. . .One cannot help but wonder if we ( the American citizenry) will be participants in that, or at least some gunfight. . . buy some more ammo, keep your weapons clean, and be ready to preserve our country when the barbarian hordes invade.
You see children, when a wise farmer gets ready to plant his crops he first must learn about the soils on his farm, learn about the local weather patterns, learn even more about the attacks on crops coming from disease, insects and other modes of destruction, he must then look forward to those markets he wishes to sell, and he might also need to find employees who can help him plant, raise and harvest during a season which only lasts so many days.
Talk about who is a real gambler…well kids, let’s just say look to the farmer for starters.
Wisdom can come from such a place. Listen up if given the chance!
Our oldest son was recruited by Yale and offered a spot (if we could come up with full tuition). we asked A friend of our family, who is a Yale grad and the counder of a very large international corporation, to write a letter of recommendation since he was a large donor and very conversant with the President of Yale. As a friend he said he would be more than happy to do so but counseled our son that it was way too liberal and would not be a good place for him lng term. He could not have been more right!
When you open your next heating bill just say “Davey Jones”, thats the “new” MacMoRan discovery in the Gulf. That would be 6 trillion cf of brand new natural gas and gobs of oil sands 20 miles off the Louisiana coast. And this bunch want to build windmills, what idiots these people really are.
VDH:
Modest Proposal for Obama #0:
Why don’t you release your vault-copy Certificate of Live Birth so that we can put to rest all the rumors about your Constitutonal qualifications to even hold the Office to which you were elected?
What are you trying to prove by playing “lawyer games”?
And…Where’s “Yes We Did”?
Shouldn’t he be along with his gag comment about now?
Question: Who is paying higher taxes because of Obama?
Answer: Nobody
But . . . if . . . what if . . . maybe then . . . what . ..
Grow up, people. You’re being played for suckers by Palin and Limbaugh and the rest of the Republican establishment..
Always enjoy your writing. Tight, succinct and with clear metaphors that delight with their classical references.
You completely lost me with the OK Corral schtick.
Come again, please.
How many of you turn on the radio or TV in the morning with a nagging since of dread?
#31 skeeziks:
“Question: Who is paying higher taxes because of Obama?
Answer: Nobody”
BZZZZZT! Wrong.
You don’t use tobacco, do you?
Obamanation is a total disaster. Just keep in mind that NY City had a disaster with Mayor David Dinkins and his gang, so even the Democrats didn’t vote for him for a second term and he was crushed by a Republican Rudy Guiliani who cleaned up all the filth and corruption. Obama is another Democrat that is a stranger to the truth and quite frankly, most thinking working people don’t like or respect liers.
“Nothing had destroyed the reputation of Yale-Harvard-Princeton more than the present administration.”
Oh. Say it isn’t so! If it is so, how will I be able to face each day?
Has it occurred to anyone that obama’s policy is more about getting what he thinks is even with society.
All leftist policy is based on nefarious platitudes like fair, level playing field, and sharing the wealth. Problem with this is that as soon as this becomes the goal, there must be an arbiter of what fair is. In other words, someone must now play god to decide what is fair or level. So you think that this kind of god power over everyone’s freedom was not the intended outcome..?
Retired SF.
11 (& 12). usmcret: “feminine nominative plural of Obama, i.e. Obamae?”
You’ll remember, usmcret, that there are a few dozen masculine nouns of the first declension in Latin, such as agricola, incola, nauta and poeta. So, I’d just treat Obama as nominative, first declension, masculine.
Interestingly (I reckon) most first declension masculine nouns are of a low caste or servile occupation or are criminal or otherwise deplorable in some way; examples include: adsecula, follower or sycophant; advena, stranger or interloper; analecta, dining room slave; andabata, gladiator who fought blindfolded; anguigena, snake-born; auriga, charioteer; cacula, servant of a soldier; cosmeta, woman’s valet; danista, money lender; drapeta, runaway slave; faeniseca, mower; flagritriba, one that wears out whips; fratricida, brother-killer; halophanta, scoundrel; lanista, trainer of gladiators; mastigia, scoundrel; perfuga, deserter; rabula, bawling advocate; scurra, buffoon; & transfuga, deserter.
To this we my add, then, the new noun: obama, -ae, masc., a glib but hypocritical speaker, an incompetent leader, or a follower thereof. (Etymological scholars might argue over whether an obama derive from ob-, as far as, + am-, on both sides + a, away from, i.e., “one who is able to look away simultaneously from both sides” or “a two-faced man”, or, perhaps, from ob-, beyond, + (h)ama, a waterbucket, i.e.,, “beyond the pail”.)
Indeed skeeziks, Obama will just continue to print more money and no one will have to pay more.
WAIT! That gives me an idea, why doesn’t he just print much more money and do away with taxes altogether! No taxes for anyone! We can spend all the money we want with no repercussions. We can all go on welfare and no American needs to work ever again!
Skeeziks, you and Obama are geniuses!
Whistling dixie refers to the “MacMoRan discovery in the Gulf. That would be 6 trillion cf of brand new natural gas and gobs of oil sands 20 miles off the Louisiana coast”. Yet will we go for it? Not likely. There’s another field located between the Florida straits and Cuba. Cuba is already awarding leases, so Russia and/or China will be exploiting resources that drain into *our* territorial waters!
Compare and contrast to Israel. Over the last year or so a number of gas deposits were discovered in *their* territorial waters, off the coasts of Haifa and Hadera. The whole country, not surprisingly, expressed their excitement. Development is already underway, and they hope to have them online in another two years.
Now tell me which country is serious about energy independence.
Ivy is a pernicious growth. If not routinely cut back or pulled out by the roots, it will destroy that which supports it.
OOPPS, Last sentence first paragraph must have deleted this key point:
I have had three’GAY” business parnters.
Also I meant no insult to Beach T-Shirt shops, I think they are great and I visit them every time at the beach in Michigan.
Thanks,
34. Bilgeman:
Tobacco? That’s it? That’s the sum total of your tax outrage? Really people?
You asked the wrong guy. I think tobacco should be outlawed.
Prevailing successfully in a poison pen match, knife fight, or a gun fight, begins with the knowing that one is comming.
That type of analysis is not in the curriculum at Ivy League schools.
just because the left consider themselves moralist doesn’t make them so. it is just another example of them claiming language for their own.
they are the most duplicitous crowd of posers out there.
as far as I am concerned they lack even the most basic of morals …honesty.
31. skeeziks:
wrong moron …everyone is paying more taxes.
or are you that stupid that you don’t know that a hidden tax is still a tax.
31. skeeziks:
what a d!ckhead you are. everyone is paying more taxes and the debt is still growing faster and faster. who will be paying that back.
the health industry? ..after the government takes them over they will not be paying taxes but sucking the taxes.
the corporations ? ..any tax that they pay is passed on to the consumer and since the China and Mexico aren’t buying their products guess who that leaves. YOU d!ckhead.
YOU may not consider it tax but that is what it is.
“One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot is worth five lawyers and academics.”
Amen. “Doers” have been supplanted by “talkers” at the top of the food chain. This arrangement is just plain nuts.
Victor
do you think that Obama is so stupid as to not know the consequences of his policies?
I think he is aware of them and his goal is being achieved.
he is doing the same things Chavez in Venezuela is doing and Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
the sooner people start reacting to that reality the better. the experts keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.
I guess you want to keep that option open too Victor ?
no one suggests that a president who says Cinco de Quatro, or 57 states, or references the “Austrian” language is a Dan Quayle wrestling with potato.
I don’t know, VDH…I kinda like the Cinco de Quatro idea. It’s a notion whose time has come. I mean, this administration is rather thin-skinned, but it doesn’t speak in a utopian dialect, unless it wants to…after all.
Since nothing they say economically ever adds up, it does actually seem as if ten trillion dollars in debt is actually quite stimulating , if by “stimulating” we mean scaring small business into hiring paralysis. When the fifth of four is our rallying cry (not to be confused with the Firth of Forth)…it signals all that we need to know about the direction of this administration.
Not only can we make the seas rise and fall at the mere mention of he who will not be changed, but we can make change for four and return five.
Take a look at our jobs “creation” and “salvation”. We create and save, we lords of employment these days, by not firing people. If that isn’t a Cinco de Quatro act, then I am befuzzled at what might be better.
You see, my dear cyberfriend, VDH…we have improved the job situation by losing less gainage. Sort of like my Chicago Bears on offense. They incessantly are flagged for holding penalties but that is so much better than an interception for a touchdown against them, that it actually improved their offensive production by being less worse than it would have been. Get it? A feat of Cinco de Quatro if there ever was one.
Health Care that aims to assist 30 million people, only needs to rape, pillage and plunder 270 million others to accomplish the feat. An absolute stroke of Cinco de Quatro brilliance. To take effect in the year 2525 (if man is still alive), but the money to be collected now, just in case. All 57 states will have to cough up the license fees, shipping fees, batteries not included fees…except for Nebraska, which gets permanent dispensation because its capital is Lincoln, and he was clean and articulate for someone born in a log cabin.
So, there you have it VDH. We, the people, give four dollars and get back five. Cinco de Quatro. Now that’s change you can believe in.
Dr. Hanson is dead on as usual:
Psychology does matter, and to the extent that it cannot be quantified or predicted, it is everything. That collective gulp we all took when Uncle Sam started throwing enormous numbers at us like $700 billion, $1 trillion, etc., was an excellent example. Who knows how the markets would have reacted if, instead of being told the world would end without mountains of bailout money, our leaders had instead calmly stated that it’s time to take our medicine, that it will hurt for a while, but to trust in the system that has afforded us the highest standard of living in the universe? Are there not thousands of small banks who would have gladly taken on the accounts of the “too big to fail” brands had they been allowed to tank in a free market? My guess is that the panic exhibited by our leaders rubbed off on people who might well be hiring today had they been shown, well, leadership.
We need consistent leaders who admit that they cannot possibly predict unintended consequences that changes in market psychology bring, not flighty leaders who run around like dutch boys patching holes they themselves created. Business leaders know that predictability by our government is the key to market stability. Our political leaders apparently do not.
The Way Our World Works
How goes the world ?
It wears, sir, it wears.
Why, that’s well known.
Obama will be challenged.
Joe Biden said it first, in
anticipation of succeeding to
the Presidency after Obama
resigns in disgrace,
post gunfight.
Never mind that skeeziks is too dumb to understand taxation – he has the gall to try to insult Conservative and then says he wants Big Brotha government to step in and ban tobacco because he doesn’t like it.
Put your faith in the state, child. The grownups will defend your freedoms.
31. Even if we haven’t yet, we will next year, because this Congress and President sure won’t make the Bush tax cuts permanent. This is besides the fact that Congress just voted to raise our taxes dramatically to pay for their health care ideas; it just hasn’t been reconciled yet, so nothing has been passed yet.
It is arrogance that prevents the deformed soul
in the Oval Office to change course. So, even
though advice like this is offered, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a8486284-fee9-11de-a677-00144feab49a.html the likelihood of it being taken by the deformed souls, reprobates and other ilk inside the Beltway is as likely as
a leopard changing its spots.
Here Skeeziks, like a good little communist you’re just dumber than a box of rocks when it comes to your own party. Here is a GOVERNMENT (your supreme being) website that lists more than 70 new taxes that went into effect on Jan 1.
http://jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=3568
The President is not governing, and has no disposition to govern. He has little influence in Congress among members of his own party. He is bent on restructuring government, without any idea of the consequences of his actions, confident that he and his acolytes know best what is good for us. The Islamic enemy, bent on our destruction, has him well pegged. Do not think for a moment that this enemy is not testing him and us, planning for some major disaster. Yet the President does not understand. How many more bows to foreign dignitaries does he think it will take to convince them that he is a real messiah?
For those dumping on Yale etc., many of us degenerates with Ivy League degrees are conservatives. It would be a good thing if there were greater diversity of educational background in government and the upper echelons of the media, but I have to stand up for my school here. Yale is a darned good place to get an education if you are a conservative. There are many other wonderful places to go to college apart from the Ivy League, but I don’t think it is attractive for conservatives to go crazy on the anti-Ivy League business. It sounds petty.
Yale, History, ’97.
Great suggestions, Professor! I especially like numbers 3 and 4.
In re #2-vandenberg: This is the most glaring example that Obama just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get that the jihadists don’t give a rat’s patoot if we close Gitmo, extend Constitutional rights to unlawful combatants, get out of Iraq/Afghanistan or abandon Israel. They don’t care if the Palestinians get a state. They don’t care that the American president’s father/step-father were Muslims or that he makes fawning speeches and grovels before them. We could do everything they’ve ever demanded on their endless lists of demands and they STILL would want to kill us. Until he understands this, he won’t be able to mount an effective defense which, in this case, means mounting an effective offense. But then I suppose that’s exactly what the president thinks he’s doing with his “mood music,” playing offense.
Anything other than a degree in the hard sciences from these schools seems to have been de-valued to the point of worthlessness.
Worse than worthless. It’s the people with degrees in the soft and social sciences, liberal arts and “studies” with their elitism, political correctness and post-modern liberalism who wreak most of the havoc around here. That’s way past the point of worthlessness and well into negative worth territory.
One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot is worth five lawyers and academics.
Or 100 climate “scientists.”
skeezix:
in debate, it is not an effective argument to say:
There is no ‘x’
and then when it is demonstrated that ‘x’ exists, to say:
Well, I want ‘x’ outlawed.
Really only shows your lack of effective rebuttal, eh?
And then there’s #56, pwning your a$$.
Don’t let the screen door hitcha where the good lord splitcha…
VDH:
At the core, Obama is a politician, so I would expect the polls to impact him psychologically. It must be devastating for him to see that he is not as liked as he once was. He may brush it off, but frustrations accumulate when things do not go according to plan, and when dreams suddenly become nightmares.
If Obama had not invested so much in the pretense that he was wiser than his predecessor, he might have been better prepared for the abject failure that the stimulus has been. However, he continues to deny that failure, in spite of unemployment that is far beyond expectations. He thus bears a stain of denial and ignorance that he attributes to others. This hypocrisy is destructive to his character.
I do not think that in the coming years Obama can rectify the damage done to his character. He will need a lot of courage to change, but so far he denies that damage has been done and that he needs to change. He may never feel compelled to analyze his place in history, to avoid the discomfort of doing so.
#15-”He ought to look after the people who elected him rather than the monied interests who have no loyalty other than to themselves.”
Who do you think elected him?
“Don’t forget Peter Orzag. His girlfriend was three months pregnant when he dumped her for broadcast journalist.”
I suppose he felt she should be knocked down, too.
Bravo VDH! But if I may (hope you don’t think it too presumptuous), I would like to nominate cfbleachers@50 for the post of the year award. Cinco de Quatro indeed! LOL
pelaut@32: I found the analogy of the OK corral brilliant! It made me think: “Hasn’t anyone in the administration ever seen a good old fashioned Western??”. This world may look nice and civilized and all through rosy glasses, but it’s still very much the wild west out there- in some ways more than ever (see Iran/Nukes). The only way to address Evil is to call it what it is, then face it head on, and defeat it. You don’t march down to the OK corral with your hat in hand, courteously bow as low as possible, and say: PPLLease Mr. Clanton, take off your gun? And you don’t do this with terrorists or Islamic regimes who threaten the world with the most devastating weapons ever devised. For all of GWB’s faults, this he understood.
Next time you’re on netflix, punch in ‘Tombstone’. Then you’ll understand :)
Really enjoyed this one. Seems like we’re getting to the point where people are REALLY speaking their minds! I think we’ve all had enough of dancing around the edges and feel like it’s time to actually paint the pukes with the brush they’ve laid out for us. I just wish we’d see more policy discussion. What ARE you going to suggest? Huges sums of money are being “redistributed” and we can’t find out where it is going. A mayor of a small town could just say, “Hey, from now on all recipients of OUR tax money are going to get IRS Form 1099-GOV filed on them.” Then we’d know where they were spending it.
Skeeze-bag: You likely think that renters don’t pay property tax, and that gasoline/diesel taxes “punish” the greedy oil companies. What part of pass-through don’t you understand?
Amen! You’ve certainly read my small businessman’s mind.
The only thing that remains to be learned is whether, when you say “Homer” they think “Simpson”, or they know exactly what they’re doing and are working to create a crisis they don’t intend to let go to waste.
I’m guessing they think it’s the later whilst hoping and believing they’re not nearly so smart and clever as they think they are.
Interesting times we live in..
PaulM:
That is quite true, and applies to the Democrat party. They are all engaged in perpetual Social Engineering projects, foisted upon all of us (because they know better than we, you see, we’re just a pack of dumbasses) – the results and consequences of which they have utterly no idea.
Axelrod is beginning to advance the argument that this year’s election is not a referendum on the Obama administration. They know what’s coming down the pipeline and it isn’t chocolate.
Why do Democrats love government jobs? It is illegal for the government to directly contribute to political candidates, but creating unionized jobs is legal. And the government employee unions are essentially subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. When you send your taxes to Washington, you’re sending a contribution to Democratic politicians ( and financing their propaganda network in NPR and PBS ). No action short of abolishing public employee unions will stop Democrats from stealing money from people who despise them
I suppose skeezix probably is dumber than a box of some rocks, but I want you to know I have a dandy rock collection. They have asked me to let it be known they highly resent being compared to his ilk. Even the rocks can’t stand soetero.
My Dear Dr. Hanson -
I have never had a serious disagreement with anything you have written, but knock off this “mean SOB” crap.
I did an extended study, including an MBA, trying to determine why some few army officers who claim to be a “mean SOB”, a “tough SOB”, or something similar act the way they do. Their actions regularly include serial and habitual dishonesty, violent temper tantrums, and unfocused and irrational decisions.
The army had a standard response to this type officer personality; they were transferred out. I was once in a position to track the progress of an SOB Lt. Colonel through four countries on three continents in a one year period, proclaiming his SOBhood as he went. Court-martial or administrative action appeared to be too much hassle and it was simply easier to transfer the SOB as far away as possible. Then someone else could worry about him.
After my MBA, I went to work in a manufacturing plant, with the firm belief that businesses would not tolerate dishonest, violent, and irrational behavior from their managers. HA! My new plant manager exhibited all the characteristics and his signature statement was, “I have a reputation as a tough little bastard.” We had a very high turnover rate, somtimes hitting 25% of our personnel every month, and the workers spoke openly and seriously of the plant manager as being “crazy”.
After completing and starting-up a new plant for the manufacturing company, I took a new job as foreman in a very large mining operation. My new manager’s first formal statement to me was, “I have a reputation as a tough, hard-nosed son-of-a-bitch.” He also had a very high personnel turnover, and he would take the drawers out of a foreman’s desk and turn them over onto the floor if he was displeased. He once ripped a bookcase off the wall of an office trailer, spilling many books onto the floor.
I was not in a position to track the cost of an individual SOB in the army, but I was in a much better position to track costs in the civilian industrial jobs, and those costs were considerable. Personnel turnover, lost production, and reduced efficiency were common and were a continuing concern to upper management, but the SOBs were kept in position for several years in both cases, in spite of the waste and inefficiency.
I did not learn anything in the MBA program that helped me to understand the SOB personality, and found only fragments of pertinent information in extensive readings in psychology. I certainly did not find a complete description of the SOB personality.
My best informed conclusion is that the SOB personality is pathologically insecure from childhood, and that his “mean SOB” persona is constructed to cover for his feelings of insecurity and self doubt. And it works, at least for a time. Aggressive and intimidating behavior by an SOB manager will keep an entire organization off-balance and uncertain. In many ways, the SOB personality is similar to an alcoholic personality, but without the chemical marker.
It is my belief that SOB personalities comprise 3-5% of the management population, and have a net negative effect on their organizations, with very high cumulative costs to their organizations and to the economy as a whole.
The most visible SOB in public life today is Rahm Emanuel, and he is making a massive negative contribution to the nation. For God’s sake, do not encourage Obama to act the same way.
Progressives have never been interested in how the real world works. Their whole ideology is based on the idea that they can make society better if they only had the power to regiment us all to their great plans.
“43. skeeziks:
You asked the wrong guy. I think tobacco should be outlawed.
Jan 12, 2010 – 9:58 am”
The fascist mentality in a nutshell. Disapprove of something? Outlaw it! Constitutional guarantees of freedom? What’s that? Never heard of it.
“58. lmn: For those dumping on Yale etc., many of us degenerates with Ivy League degrees are conservatives. It would be a good thing if there were greater diversity of educational background in government and the upper echelons of the media, but I have to stand up for my school here. Yale is a darned good place to get an education if you are a conservative. There are many other wonderful places to go to college apart from the Ivy League, but I don’t think it is attractive for conservatives to go crazy on the anti-Ivy League business. It sounds petty. Yale, History, ‘97.”
lmn, criticism of your school needn’t be criticm of you. However, you do no credit to yourself, Yale or any other of the Ivy League universities by defending them on the grounds you have chosen… accusing your fellow conservatives of being petty.
For years, too many years, we have been told that the Ivy League schools are home to America’s best and brighest faculty, researchers and students – and indeed this is often the case, especially in the hard sciences, engineering, medicine, and other quantitative fields. Conversely, however, the Ivys have cheapened their reputations in the name of political correctness, affirmative action, petty dime-store demagoguery, shallow leftism, social engineering and other pursuits only tangentially related to their education mission. Over the last fifty years, having been taught their superiority, the “best and brighest” set forth to places like Washington DC, secure in the knowledge that they knew better than the common person what was right and best for America. It turned out to be so much bull. Remember Robert MacNamara, and his “whiz kids” – who knew how to “manage” Vietnam, or the equally bright-eyed Ivies who populated the CIA and screwed that agency up also? There are many other examples, in the Dept. of the Treasury, and elsewhere in the upper strata of national government and business, of the type – self-assured to the point of arrogance, smart but unwise, elitist, parochial and disdainful of others who didn’t attend one of the great Ivy “finishing schools.” And now the Ivy Leagues have given us B. Hussein Obama – America’s first post-American president, and the logical culmination of all those years of unexamined radicalism at Harvard Law and lots of other places. For any Democrats reading this, upset that I am singling out the golden one, need I remind you that GWB came also from an Ivy, Yale? When will we learn that where one attended school is not an accurate predictor of wisdom or leadership skill?
The truth of the matter is that the Ivy Leagues schools have been living off past glories for decades, and now serve as little more than rubber stamps of America’s pre-existing economic, political and social elites, who congregate there not so much to receive an education, as to use the place as a social register and network for life after college. Grown fat and arrogant off of generous and naive graduates, their endowments massive, the Ivy League schools thumb their noses at those of us who dare to question their worth not only to individual students, but to society. Well, go ahead… we’ll return the favor. Far as I am concerned, any place that welcomes an intellectual mediocrity like Cornell West into its ranks deserves all the approbation and abuse I can muster, and then some.
If the recent graduates of the Ivy Leagues who have done such a fine job wreaking our nation had any humility (the starting point of wisdom is humility) whatsoever, they’d beg the people of this nation for forgiveness for so tarnishing the birthright bequethed to them by their forebearers. But something tells me that isn’t about to happen.
here’s a suggestion for all you bootstrappin conservatives
1) every time you invect muslim, substitute human being
2) every time you shread obama, think of a beautiful white baby
3) every time you whince homosexual, visualize a giant penis sliding into glistening vagina
4) every time you invoke small business, imagine no rats, dogs, or other undesirables
and maybe then all your troubles will gently slip away
Bob Piat, I admire your illuminating suggestions. I admire, almost as much, your very progressive use of English. Next time I’ve a chance to invoke the “invect” on all that “shread” and “whince” I will make sure to think of rats, dogs, small businesses or other undesirables.
You, Sir, have well proven your Ivy League chops.
“One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot is worth five lawyers and academics. “?!?!
As an engineer, I am insulted at being equated to 1/5 of a lawyer or academic. Lawyers are negative quantities, engineers are positive. It’s like saying 2 + 2 = -4
More accurate would be, “One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot can COUNTERACT five lawyers and academics.”
Please take it back. ;)
I know some complain, but VDH’s movie metaphors are a part of the blog’s charm. The Professor should take a week off politics and do ’round up of his recent cinematic faves… Even if it’s a 30 year old Western he caught on TCM.
Speaking of Westerns and International Relations, imagine Barack knocking aside his Tele-Prompter and shouting into the assembled cameras, “You tell Mahmoud I’m coming… And Hell’s Coming With Me!” After Iran has collapsed in the street, Barack can shake his head sadly and remark, “Eventus stultorum magister!”
#77 Bob. What in the hell are you talking about?
bob piat,
I suggest professional help, seriously. Or if that is intended as irony? Don’t quit your day job.
77. And maybe pretending that there were no Nazis would have saved the Jews from the gas chambers. Yeah right.
Bob, when I want all my troubles to gently slip away, I visualize Obaama, riding a pink unicorn across fields of golden clouds, passing out candy to all good progressives, whilst using his flaming sword of justice against all those evil, bootstrappin’ conservatives.
Meditations on the Lucky Charms Leprachaun sometimes help, too. Or Noam Chomsky, in a pink ballet tutu, singing and dancing his way into America’s collective heart.
And, of course, one can always remember Gumby.
I also like to imagine a giant piece of pork/stimulus spreading, sliding gently into the American economy, as I imagine no rats, fleas, ticks, spiders, reality shows or other noxious things.
Then I remember Gumby. And all my troubles slip gently away into Nirvana, softly singing, “Muskrat Love.”
73 Dracovert.
When talking about SOB’s, I usually think about my associations with people who have narcissistic personality disorder. That disorder has been over used describing the president and whether or not that is the case with him, few I think have ever bothered to look up the traits.
We may consider a troubled youth or bad influences or environments but the end result is someone we don’t like and who is too bossy and unreasonable far beyond the kind of behavior that we normally find with just about everybody else.
I took these symptoms of NPD off a website and they’re more or less consistent with people I’ve known personally…people who myself and others have considered a@# ho&%$ and SOB’s. Compare them with people you’ve known…and disliked.
amoral/conscienceless
authoritarian
care only about appearances
contemptuous
critical of others
cruel
disappointing gift-givers
don’t recognize own feelings
envious and competitive
feel entitled
flirtatious or seductive
grandiose
hard to have a good time with
hate to live alone
hyper-sensitive to criticism
impulsive
lack sense of humor
naive
passive
pessimistic
religious
secretive
self-contradictory
stingy
strange work habits
unusual eating habits
weird sense of time
77. bob piat
This is not the right blog for you.
@ 73. Dracovert: SOB Managers
Thank you for a very useful datum.
Two possibly related examples:
1) Hearsay; Never met the man: An engineer, working for a large Mil/Ind company, had
all his coworkers afraid for their lives,
if they reported his behavior, which included
asking one coworker to act as lookout during
a robbery, and walking up to a secretary’s
desk and telling her “You; Get up, you’re
coming with me.”
2) Hearsay again, but falsifiable by research:
Jack Northrop, aircraft designer, had a meeting with W. Stuart Symington, Secretary of the Air Force, during which Symington made Northrop an
Offer he could not refuse: In return for stock
in Northrop Aircraft, Northrop’s flying wing
bomber would be chosen over Convair’s entry
in a fly-off competition. Northrop said that
after his refusal, Symington became so angry
that he was in fear of his life.
But wait, there’s more: Northrop lost the
competition, but his prototype aircraft were
not put in storage, as is the usual practice;
Instead, armed military personnel escorted a
demolition crew onto the factory floor, and
Northrop, and his employees, got to watch while
the aircraft they had worked so hard to build
were cut up into little tiny pieces, and carted
off to the dump.
Admittedly rare occurences, but then it takes
only one such encounter to ruin your whole day,
or what is left of your life, or your country.
Good piece. Regarding the flood of Ivy types with no practical experience that washed into Obama’s administration a recent analysis comes to mind but I can’t find the link. Some reputable group recently published a chart that depicted the number of political appointees who had private sector experience for president’s going back 30 years or so. On average presidents’ appointees from the private sector made up 40-55% with republicans more on the high side. No one president was below 40%. Obama’s administration has a stunning total of 6% from the private sector. So its not just pointy heads from the Ivy’s, although that’s a major problem, its that fact that his administration is virtually no private sector experience. My guess is that if a tax expert in the administration had actually had to make payroll or make it through the cash flow valley of death he or she would be a bit more reluctant to tax everything that moved.
I usually start reading the most recent comments. Unfortunately I’ve stumbled upon No. 77, one Bob Piat. Alas, he doesn’t glisten, nor shine.
Should the Republicans want Tom Coburn run for office (see comment No. 6), let him first lose his oh, so 1970s hairstyle – a la his namesake James Coburn. Never trust a 62 year old with a centre parting.
77.kumbaya my lord….kum-ba-ya…
Obamas stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs according to the report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. the economy is most likely a lot better off than it would have been without the stimulus.
Obamas stimulus plan has already created or saved up to 2 million jobs according to the report from the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. the economy is most likely a lot better off than it would have been without the stimulus. Anyone against green and renewable energy for this country is either uninformed, insincere or on the take.
77. Let’s see if that works with other stuff. How about every time we talk about the economy, we pretend there is no unemployment, and maybe all our problems will disappear. NOT!
Feeling particularly clever today Bob?
To Deadman#38
Well said O learned scholar of Latin. I stand corrected and I wholly endorse your suggestion for substitutions for my most limited analysis of the word Obama as I applied it to Latin declension.
I really think your analysis is masterful and reflects, perhaps, an Ivy League education of a past generation, such as mine. The Ivy League of today sadly, does not involve a “liberal” education because true”liberalism” is dead in the Ivies. What exists today, in my estimation, is intellectual totalitarianism. the extreme of political correctness. That was not the Penn from which I graduated as a liberal arts honors major some 50 years ago.
Again, well said and
SEMPER FI
Bob #77:
The best thing you can do for your cause is buy a roll of duct tape and wrap it, in its entirety, around your head.
cfbleachers – another winning comment – fantastic.
bob piat – ??? – you sound like you’re in junior high. Platitudes will get you nowhere.
Ron Kean 86
M. Report 87
Thanx for the input. Similar personalities have been reported in WSJ and one airline CEO seemed to fit the type. I have identified over 50 such personalities in my research.
But if you can live with the stress and the waste, SOBs can be very funny. While I was working in the manufacturing plant, the SOB plant manager would go off his meds and run around the plant causing trouble and disrupting production. Jack, the production superintendent, and I worked out a system. When the SOB was causing too much trouble, Jack would bring me a broken tool without saying a word. I would take the tool to the SOB and explain that the tool was important to the job, and that we needed it right away.
The SOB had a company car and loved to run errands; I always thought it made him feel important or useful. There were several hardware stores within a few miles, but the SOB always disappeared for two or three hours on his errands.
One day Jack brought me a 3# double-jack with a broken handle, which is like a small sledge hammer, complete with a hole through the hammer’s head. The SOB and I went through the usual routine and off he went on his errand, carrying the broken handle for sizing.
Two hours later the SOB returned with a handle for a fourteen ounce ball-peen. The SOB and Jack and I were standing by maintenance, and I told the SOB that the handle he had brought back was too small. The SOB became really angry and said, “Don’t you know how that works? You drive wedges into the head to make it tight.”
I held the double-jack head in one hand and the ball-peen handle in the other hand, and dropped the handle through the hole in the hammer head. The handle did not slow down and bounced off the concrete floor.
The SOB said, “It’s too small!”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
The SOB brightened and said, “I can go get another one!”
I said, “Yes, sir, we really need that handle.”
And he disappeared for another two hours.
In three years, running errands, tabulating the daily production which took about fifteen minutes, and sitting on the front steps of the office building with a bucket of soap and water cleaning filters was the only useful work this SOB plant manager ever did. He chased off good people, botched hiring interviews, and could not understand the time clock which had increments of tenths and hundredths of an hour for ease of calculation.
75. Jeff Perren:
The fascist mentality in a nutshell. Disapprove of something? Outlaw it! Constitutional guarantees of freedom? What’s that? Never heard of it.
So you think weed should be legal? And abortion? And incest? Buck up, stud, this is your chance to be a true conservative (AKA arbitrary).
I can’t tell you how I enjoy this board!!
A quote from Jack Whyte in his novel about Britain called “The Eagle.”
…….A man who cannot laugh at himself can never see the humor in anyone or anything else, and that is a tragic flaw, no matter who it may involve. For in the lack of humor lie all the seeds of evil and destruction. People who see themselves as being worthy of admiration, and who cannot conceive of themselves as ever being a cause for laughter, are far too serious for their own good, and even worse, they generally believe they have a calling to impress the importance of their beliefs on others. God save us all from humorless men, for they are also merciless and implacable.”
I wish i would not have written that, but sometimes you just gotta make an ass out of yourself
Dr. Hanson,
As a resolute fan of various forms of sarcasm, I happily give your article an A plus plus.
While it probably goes right over the heads of our resident trolls, your language delivering each wonderful word
is sharp as a razor’s edge.
Well done. I hardly could have done better myself.
love, rachel