Robert Samuelson, a writer I admire, sees Keynesianism in eclipse, but I'm not sure we should nail down the coffin lid just yet. I thought Keynes was confirmed dead years ago, only to see him resurrected with relish, ala Vlad the BigSpender, after the housing bubble burst and this President was elected.
Just a few years ago, before the Bush/Obama bailouts and spending binges drove the economy further into the ditch, exposing the limits of government pump priming, the Left was gleefully declaring Adam Smith dead. Markets had once again failed us, they said. Keynesianism is the way to go.
Now Keynes is being pulled off his pedestal and replaced by. . . . well, we still haven't figured that out. Keynes will not die, or even rest, until statists concede that government kills far, far more jobs than it "creates." And that, I'm coming to believe, is a religious position, over which reason and fact have no bearing.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Deadly Delusions
It's interesting that the media focuses so much attention on Kim Jong-il's more frivolous "insane delusions" while ignoring his most insane delusions of all: that Marxism makes sense; that communism is humane and just; that individuals exist to serve as slaves of the state.
Such delusions aren't just insane, they're deadly, as the bloody history of the 20th Century shows. The sad thing is that such delusions won't die alongside this demented tyrant. They are carried forward, in watered-down form, by leaders, academics, pundits and people who aren't widely seen as deluded at all.
Such delusions aren't just insane, they're deadly, as the bloody history of the 20th Century shows. The sad thing is that such delusions won't die alongside this demented tyrant. They are carried forward, in watered-down form, by leaders, academics, pundits and people who aren't widely seen as deluded at all.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Warren Buffett's Subsidy Buffet
White House pal Warren Buffett didn't become a gazillionaire by not knowing how to work the angles. And he's not above using government power or the taxpayers' pocket to pump-up his profit margins. With this purchase Buffett not only reveals himself as a run-of-the-mill subsidy chaser, but he's betting that taxpayer support for these not-ready-for-primetime energy technologies will continue, despite the scandals that have rocked these programs.
He's a crony capitalist who trusts that taxpayers will hedge this bet on solar.
The Los Angeles Times speculates that Buffett's investment in solar will help "boost" the industry. But by what means? Will his involvement increase the likelihood of technical breakthroughs in solar technology, open new markets for solar power or magically make solar power cost-competitive with conventional alternatives? Probably not. The "boost" he'll give the industry stems not from his influence in the free market, or his excellence as a businessman, or his track record as an innovator, but from his influence in Washington and Sacramento, where his lobbying power will be used to keep the government propping-up companies that can't survive without mandates or subsidies.
Buffett, like all good crony capitalists, is a parasite who wants to keep feeding off the body politic. And his deeper investment in these government-protected industries means he will do everything in his considerable power to keep the protection racket going -- to keep profiteering at our expense.
He's a crony capitalist who trusts that taxpayers will hedge this bet on solar.
The Los Angeles Times speculates that Buffett's investment in solar will help "boost" the industry. But by what means? Will his involvement increase the likelihood of technical breakthroughs in solar technology, open new markets for solar power or magically make solar power cost-competitive with conventional alternatives? Probably not. The "boost" he'll give the industry stems not from his influence in the free market, or his excellence as a businessman, or his track record as an innovator, but from his influence in Washington and Sacramento, where his lobbying power will be used to keep the government propping-up companies that can't survive without mandates or subsidies.
Buffett, like all good crony capitalists, is a parasite who wants to keep feeding off the body politic. And his deeper investment in these government-protected industries means he will do everything in his considerable power to keep the protection racket going -- to keep profiteering at our expense.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Obama Dons Teddy in Latest Reinvention
Teddy Roosevelt charged up San Juan Hill. The only thing Barack Obama ever charged up was this bankrupt nation's credit card. If his image is ever carved in stone, it should be on Mount Spendmore.
The guy cuts and pastes a few slogans from a century old TR speech, taken out of context, and suddenly he has "a voice"? What a fraud. And it's a fraud perpetrated and enabled by frauds in the media establishment, who are so easily sucked-in that they actually take such comparisons seriously.
The man isn't fit to hold TR's horse.
Who better to puncture the pretensions of our strange President Zelig than a bona fide historian, Victor Davis Hanson.
The guy cuts and pastes a few slogans from a century old TR speech, taken out of context, and suddenly he has "a voice"? What a fraud. And it's a fraud perpetrated and enabled by frauds in the media establishment, who are so easily sucked-in that they actually take such comparisons seriously.
The man isn't fit to hold TR's horse.
Who better to puncture the pretensions of our strange President Zelig than a bona fide historian, Victor Davis Hanson.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The Unforgiven
I used to sort of like Clint Eastwood but now, after the release of "J Edgar," I just think of him as another Hollywood half-wit, regurgitating revisionist "history" in a pander to the Left. Hoover, like Nixon and McCarthy, truly are America's "Unforgiven." Virtually everyone else who becomes notorious gets at least one shot at rehabilitation and redemption in America, sometimes even two, except for these perennial lepers. And why is that?
Is it because they conducted wiretapping? Is it because they were ruthless? Is it because they sometimes became rule-bending zealots in pursuit of political or personal demons? Not really. The same could be said of many American historical figures (Bobby Kennedy, to name just one) who are still held in relatively high esteem.
So what was their unpardonable sin? It was fighting the spread of Stalinism and Soviet tyranny. It was being correct about the evils of communism, at a time when so many Americans, especially fellow-travelers on the left, were ignoring or minimizing or actively enabling Soviet crimes.
You can be forgiven for anything in American, it seems, but for being a staunch anti-communist -- though it's by now beyond doubt that communism was a force for evil in the world. It's that, not Watergate or the Army-McCarthy hearings or Hoover's alleged abuses of power, that makes them the pariahs they remain.
Not everyone likes gleefully jumping on their graves, however. Some of us find their anti-communist crusading admirable, even heroic, given the Cold War context in which they lived. And they rise even higher in our esteem in response to the hatred and derision heaped on them by unreconstructed fellow-travelers and their useful idiots among opinion-makers. We understand that they are hated because they were honest about communism. We know they are doubly hated because they were effective anti-communists. And that, more than anything else, is why we can forgive them their other human foibles.
And what of Eastwood's motives? Why would this supposed Republican (though a Hollywood Republican) bastardize Hoover's biography (especially his alleged sexual history) the way he does in J. Edgar? It seems like just another bid for redemption by the former Dirty Harry, who made a fortune and sold out theaters in politically-incorrect shoot-em-ups that undoubtedly offended Tinseltown's liberal sensibilities, but who has in more recent films struck a notably softer tone, as if he is making amends for his former movie persona (not to mention his reputation for being one of the industry's few -- gasp -- Republicans).
This is a portrait of Hoover that's sure to win Eastwood the love of Hollywood's left-leaning establishment, which is what he still obviously craves. And it might also just win him a best director Oscar, since "the Academy" isn't above making political or social statements with the awards it hands out. That, in my view, explains it. It's a cynical, shameless, pandering move on Eastwood's part, which lowers his stature in my opinion. But no one ever went wrong, or broke, in contemporary Hollywood cranking-out Leftist propaganda.
Is it because they conducted wiretapping? Is it because they were ruthless? Is it because they sometimes became rule-bending zealots in pursuit of political or personal demons? Not really. The same could be said of many American historical figures (Bobby Kennedy, to name just one) who are still held in relatively high esteem.
So what was their unpardonable sin? It was fighting the spread of Stalinism and Soviet tyranny. It was being correct about the evils of communism, at a time when so many Americans, especially fellow-travelers on the left, were ignoring or minimizing or actively enabling Soviet crimes.
You can be forgiven for anything in American, it seems, but for being a staunch anti-communist -- though it's by now beyond doubt that communism was a force for evil in the world. It's that, not Watergate or the Army-McCarthy hearings or Hoover's alleged abuses of power, that makes them the pariahs they remain.
Not everyone likes gleefully jumping on their graves, however. Some of us find their anti-communist crusading admirable, even heroic, given the Cold War context in which they lived. And they rise even higher in our esteem in response to the hatred and derision heaped on them by unreconstructed fellow-travelers and their useful idiots among opinion-makers. We understand that they are hated because they were honest about communism. We know they are doubly hated because they were effective anti-communists. And that, more than anything else, is why we can forgive them their other human foibles.
And what of Eastwood's motives? Why would this supposed Republican (though a Hollywood Republican) bastardize Hoover's biography (especially his alleged sexual history) the way he does in J. Edgar? It seems like just another bid for redemption by the former Dirty Harry, who made a fortune and sold out theaters in politically-incorrect shoot-em-ups that undoubtedly offended Tinseltown's liberal sensibilities, but who has in more recent films struck a notably softer tone, as if he is making amends for his former movie persona (not to mention his reputation for being one of the industry's few -- gasp -- Republicans).
This is a portrait of Hoover that's sure to win Eastwood the love of Hollywood's left-leaning establishment, which is what he still obviously craves. And it might also just win him a best director Oscar, since "the Academy" isn't above making political or social statements with the awards it hands out. That, in my view, explains it. It's a cynical, shameless, pandering move on Eastwood's part, which lowers his stature in my opinion. But no one ever went wrong, or broke, in contemporary Hollywood cranking-out Leftist propaganda.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Virtue of Admitting Defeat
In an interesting development for energy war watchers, the great and powerful Google admitted today that it can't overturn the laws of economics, physics or thermodynamics, by abandoning grand plans to get into the renewable energy racket. Now if only "clean energy" gurus in Washington has enough humility to admit defeat and invest themselves in more worthwhile pursuits.
That won't happen, of course, and for a very revealing reason. Google, although amazingly profitable, remains a business, subject to the dictates of profit and loss. If it's wasting shareholder money on unprofitable and futile ventures, sooner or later the sinking bottom line will force a course correction, as it did in this case. But no such rules apply to the federal government, which is why it's so reckless, wasteful and dangerous to our pocketbooks. Unlike Google, it has a seemingly-endless supply of money and time to squander in pursuit of energy police panaceas and pipedreams, ala Solyndra. And nothing short of total bankruptcy will apparently change its ways.
Google is doing the smart thing by admitting defeat. But government never admits defeat -- all its failures, in fact, become excuses to spend even more on the fruitless, the forlorn and the phony. How much better off we taxpayers would be if the people in Washington had just a modicum of the smarts and humility Google just showed.
That won't happen, of course, and for a very revealing reason. Google, although amazingly profitable, remains a business, subject to the dictates of profit and loss. If it's wasting shareholder money on unprofitable and futile ventures, sooner or later the sinking bottom line will force a course correction, as it did in this case. But no such rules apply to the federal government, which is why it's so reckless, wasteful and dangerous to our pocketbooks. Unlike Google, it has a seemingly-endless supply of money and time to squander in pursuit of energy police panaceas and pipedreams, ala Solyndra. And nothing short of total bankruptcy will apparently change its ways.
Google is doing the smart thing by admitting defeat. But government never admits defeat -- all its failures, in fact, become excuses to spend even more on the fruitless, the forlorn and the phony. How much better off we taxpayers would be if the people in Washington had just a modicum of the smarts and humility Google just showed.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
The Cain Scrutiny
Two factors may help Herman Cain weather the first major political storm of his candidacy.
The first is that many folks predisposed to support Cain also have serious doubts about the objectivity, credibility and honesty of the liberal media elite pushing the story. The "mainstream" media is widely perceived to have an agenda -- justifiably, in my opinion -- that's hostile to conservatives and libertarians. People on the right, if they haven't actively tuned-out the MSM, simply aren't going to allow a media cabal to drag their candidate down -- at least not without hard, damning evidence that the man is a genuine demon.
Second, Cain seems to be benefiting from what might be called The Clinton Effect.
The former president set the bar so low in terms of presidential behavior, personal mores and salacious sexual adventures that almost anyone can easily clear it, inoculating candidates like Cain against the damage that certain revelations might formerly have inflicted. Clinton's continuing popularity with certain Americans -- the fact that he still struts upon the national stage as a lecherous elder statesman -- tells politicians that a sexual scandal does not have to spell political ruin. On the contrary, you can sodomize an intern in the Oval Office coat closet and still live out your days as the political celebrity, with the media hanging on your every pronouncement.
But Republicans are different, some will say. "Values voters" don't tolerate such nonsense. They have higher standards. Such scandals still can damage candidates on the right, since Republicans still expect something more from their leaders than someone who can run the welfare state spoils system.
Yes, but maybe that's changing, as conservatives, libertarians and even RINO Republicans recognize that there's something far more dangerous to the Republic than a candidate with a loose tongue, wondering eye or history of divorce -- which is having a dangerous, left-wing ideologue like Barack Obama in the White House for 4 more years. When the survival of the Republic is at stake, winning becomes more important than nitpicking and moral preening. Certain character flaws can (and must) be overlooked in a candidate who can knock-off Obama and reverse this country's toboggan ride toward fiscal and economic ruin.
Maybe this time Republicans are so determined to win that they aren't going to allow rank hypocrites on the other side, and in elite media circles, torpedo viable candidates and turn their value voting tendencies against them. The stakes are much higher, and clearer, this time around. They fear Barack Obama and his radical policies more than they fret over minor alleged character flaws in their candidates.
The first is that many folks predisposed to support Cain also have serious doubts about the objectivity, credibility and honesty of the liberal media elite pushing the story. The "mainstream" media is widely perceived to have an agenda -- justifiably, in my opinion -- that's hostile to conservatives and libertarians. People on the right, if they haven't actively tuned-out the MSM, simply aren't going to allow a media cabal to drag their candidate down -- at least not without hard, damning evidence that the man is a genuine demon.
Second, Cain seems to be benefiting from what might be called The Clinton Effect.
The former president set the bar so low in terms of presidential behavior, personal mores and salacious sexual adventures that almost anyone can easily clear it, inoculating candidates like Cain against the damage that certain revelations might formerly have inflicted. Clinton's continuing popularity with certain Americans -- the fact that he still struts upon the national stage as a lecherous elder statesman -- tells politicians that a sexual scandal does not have to spell political ruin. On the contrary, you can sodomize an intern in the Oval Office coat closet and still live out your days as the political celebrity, with the media hanging on your every pronouncement.
But Republicans are different, some will say. "Values voters" don't tolerate such nonsense. They have higher standards. Such scandals still can damage candidates on the right, since Republicans still expect something more from their leaders than someone who can run the welfare state spoils system.
Yes, but maybe that's changing, as conservatives, libertarians and even RINO Republicans recognize that there's something far more dangerous to the Republic than a candidate with a loose tongue, wondering eye or history of divorce -- which is having a dangerous, left-wing ideologue like Barack Obama in the White House for 4 more years. When the survival of the Republic is at stake, winning becomes more important than nitpicking and moral preening. Certain character flaws can (and must) be overlooked in a candidate who can knock-off Obama and reverse this country's toboggan ride toward fiscal and economic ruin.
Maybe this time Republicans are so determined to win that they aren't going to allow rank hypocrites on the other side, and in elite media circles, torpedo viable candidates and turn their value voting tendencies against them. The stakes are much higher, and clearer, this time around. They fear Barack Obama and his radical policies more than they fret over minor alleged character flaws in their candidates.
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