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Election Night 2012: Is It 1860 All Over Again?
We couldn't have asked for a more portentious finale to a hard-fought presidential campaign. The swirling storm swept up the Atlantic seaboard, emptied its wrath on the Jersey shore, battered lower Manhattan and the southern shore of Long Island, and produced scenes of Old Testament destruction before it veered inland. Any soothsayer worth his sooth would have quaked in fear of its occult meaning.
Coming as it did a week before a bitter election, the monster hurricane with the disarming name took our minds off partisan politics for a moment. But make no mistake, America on Election Night 2012 is more sharply divided than at any time since 1860. That year, with the nation already barreling inexorably toward Civil War, the election of a moderate anti-slavery Republican named Abraham Lincoln over his Democratic archrival Stephen A. Douglas was enough to break up the Union.
Tonight, no matter whose name flashes on our TV screens when the networks reveal their final projections, we'll be sliding toward the most contentious era in our history since the last four years — but even more so.
Conservatives hate Obama with a passion generally reserved for the Vietnam-era Jane Fonda. They proclaimed him a socialist, even though his domestic policies would place him slightly to the right of Richard Nixon. During his first term they continually attacked his legitimacy and even his nationality; the Republican majority in the House went out of its way to thwart his every move, even at the expense of the country as a whole. Then, naturally, they blasted him for his lack of accomplishments.
Liberals, for their part, fear that a Romney presidency (and particularly a Ryan vice-presidency, which goes with the package) would propel us even more speedily toward a winner-take-all society — a latter-day Yankee replica of Latin American republics with their self-pampering upper classes and impoverished peasantry. They excoriate the Michigan Mormon for his shape-shifting policies, his slippery penchant for saying whatever he needs to say to win votes at the moment: conservative when stumping for his party's nomination, moderate when appealing to the national electorate, and who-knows-what after he takes office.
The reality is that both nominees are more moderate than their supporters. Yet each man has come to symbolize the rampant polarization that defines America in 2012. We've been torn asunder by financial collapse, endless unemployment, corporate outsourcing, growing wealth disparities, abortion, guns, race, religion, gay rights, the insatiable greed of bankers and the insatiable needs of the unfortunate. We've taken sides like a land split down the middle by an earthquake, with most of the populace on one side or the other, and only a sprinkling of hardy souls occupying the middle.
The polarization of America has been fueled not only by hyperpartisan politicians, but by the tireless militancy of Twitter extremists and Facebook fanatics. These chatty radicals are something new on the American scene; they preach to a homogeneous choir in a vast echo chamber that raises the volume and distorts opinions until there's no possibility of compromise with the enemy.
As a wise Republican once warned us, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The winner of the 2012 presidential election must work to find common ground between America's dangerously overheated liberals and conservatives. It shouldn't take a disaster like Hurricane Sandy to unite partisan warriors like Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in brotherly affection. If Americans refuse to unite, we'll have an even more devastating disaster on our hands.
LATE-BREAKING BULLETIN: It's Obama! The president won narrowly in most of the battleground states, and it was enough to put him over the top. Romney conceded late but graciously, and Obama's victory speech should have been enough to convince (nearly) all doubters that this president wants to be a uniter. Now it remains to be seen if the Republican Congress (and all those fervent Tea Partiers out there) will let him govern.
Rob Anderson permalinkNovember 6, 2012 8:45 pm
Sometimes I have to remind myself that this site is called "The New Moderate", as so much that is written to it fundamentally right wing. But then I recall that the framework of political debate has shifted so far to the right over the last 40 years that a borderline reactionary of his time – Richard Nixon – is now to the *left* of our sitting, Democrat president. FAR to the left when it comes to civil rights.
If we are on the virge of a second civil war – and I believe we are – it will largely be due to the inability of otherwise intelligent people to see the threat for what it is.
November 7, 2012 11:50 am
If the country has drifted to the right over the past 40 years then the center has moved, and that would place TNM solidly on the left.
Nixon was never on the right, even the Bush's are arguably not right.
This president is another in a long line of statist imperialists – of course he is abysmal on civil rights.
Monica permalinkNovember 6, 2012 9:35 pm
The fuel for the discord is just not Twitter or Facebook but the endless brainwashing by Fox News,MSNBC, and the Talking Heads of radio and television. When you listen to Romney supporters it's like talking to "Stepford" people. They all say the same phrases over and over. The most popular one I hear is that they are voting for someone who loves their country like Romney and Obama hates this country, plans to destroy it, and is a "Muslim". I don't think anyone believes that Ryan has a bag of tricks waiting to unleash on the unsuspecting middleclass. How gullible and truly uninformed this country has become. I compare them to sheep being led to slaughter!!
JB Say permalinkNovember 6, 2012 10:42 pm
I disagree totally that Obama is a Moderate. He only appears moderate because he does not have the skills nor the energy to move his statist agenda through a largely moderate House of Rep. If he were the Emperor, he would love to move the country into leftist terrritory, as long as he didn't you know, have to do any real work.
Golf, anyone?
November 7, 2012 12:44 am
Obama has promoted the divided country. He has done little to bring the country together. When he stands before the American people and talks of the 99 and 1, he has set the table for division. Now he is in a position that he is going to have to work with congress, which he has not done for 46 months. He has met very few times with Democrat Party leaders and fewer times with the Republican leadership.
The question now is will he go before the American people again and talk of the 99 and 1? Will he promote a tax increase on the 1 that will do nothing to solve the fiscal crisis we face and believe a divided country where he most likely will receive just a few votes over Romney will go to their congressional representative and demand they vote with Obama? Or will he try to begin working with congress to find compromise to fix the problems we face?
I believe Obama will be left out of the fiscal clift discussion. Congressional leaders will forge a compromise that will fix the problem for a few years, but will not fix the structural problems at all. They will send Obama legislation and dare him to veto that legislation. They have no loyalty to Obama now that he is a lame duck president and the next group of candidates will be positioning themselves for the 2016 election cycle.
And Obama will use executive orders that will be hard for congress to stop to get many of his environmental issues into law, thus bypassing congress.And he might even proclaim some things environmentally dangerious, even though they have nothing to do with the environment.
But hold on to your rears, as the fights we will see in the senate over SCOTUS appointments will make what we have seen so far look like childs play. It is really going to show what division really is short of a civil war. .
November 7, 2012 10:14 am
Here is an observation I've been saving for this moment. Here is a pattern I see
Reelected Presidents
W. Bush
One-term presidents
G.H.W Bush
The pattern? The reelected presidents all had opposition from significant numbers of people who thought these figures where the devil himself, I remember how Nixon was hated it was comparable to how W and Obama were hated. Reagan and Clinton were ridiculed by large portions of the population as unfit to hold the office.
I am not passing any judgement on why these presidents were hated and whether there were valid reasons for some, each can judge them for themself.
Ford Carter and Bush I had more reasoned oppositions, I do not remember large groups that were completely beside themselves. There are always some of course. Some might say that Carter was hated and ridiculed, but the negative opinion of his presidency has developed over time. At the time we disliked him but not too many had Carter disreality disease.
The moral? Opposition to a president is much more effective when it stays within certain bounds. When a large portion of the population has really lost it, it backfires. Trump asking for a presidents birth certificate is a bad sign, as are those that followed Rush wherever his fantasies took him.
If the party leadership would act on this insight and try to discourage the red meat throwing and red meat throwers, it might lead to more edifying campaigns and more of my beloved moderation. And It would work out a lot better for the opposition as well.
Musher permalinkNovember 7, 2012 10:40 am
Being from the reddest state in the Union (Utah) I'd be happy to tell you what the country may have looked like under Romney. Crushing theocracy that controls everything with a seemingly gentle hand, but a big stick in the back pocket. I grew up here so I am no eastern transplant that is used to something else. At times it is almost facist. Being anything but a conservative in Utah is a bust. I recently had dinner with some Tea Party folks across the table from me and they had so much hatred for Democrats (in general, not just Obama) that they admitted that they would like to see them all driven into the dirt. There is no room for anyone with different views in most of the Republican party anymore. But they told me outright that they hated my type even more because I said I was a moderate and they said we were the ones that would truly end up in hell because we had no passion for any position. Listening a little too much to red meat radio I suppose.
November 7, 2012 3:21 pm
Musher, just wanted to lend some support to your comments about the conservatives in Utah. My daughter, born and raise in North Carolina who is a fiscal conservative and social liberal moved to Salt Lake City 5 years ago to work in a rehab hospital. Although the politics of the area are changing with the influx of out of state people moving in, she is still shocked with some of the comments she hears when she is visiting where native born Ute's are present. And shocking someone born and raised in NC in this cirtcumstance would be much harder that shocking someone from New York City who may have never been around some red neck bubba's. Yes, some of the most radical of the radicals are in Utah.
November 7, 2012 4:08 pm
Please clarify. Where did I say anything about racist? I commented "Some of the most radical of the Radicals live in Utah". Given the number of fundementalist mormans living in the rural areas of Utah, is that not a true statement?
JB Say permalinkNovember 7, 2012 7:23 pm
You didn't but then again, usually that next statement follows, so I just jumped ahead, If you weren't going there, then consider it a gift anyway!
That was a joke BTW.
November 7, 2012 11:59 am
We just finished a bitterly contested election between two candidates who are barely distinguishable. That sounds neither polarized nor hyper-partisan to me.
Analysis of this will take a long time, but the early suggestions are that despite the fixation of the political class on this election voters were extremely uninspired.
Ron Paul – at least nominally republican could not endorse his own parties candidate.
A year ago nearly few expected a President with this bad a record to survive.
The GOP was expected o pick up as much as 6 senate seats.
Turnout was low – lower than 2008, lower than 2004. Obama's Vaunted GOTV drive failed – BUT Romney's failed even worse.
If that holds up it speaks to the opposite of your conclusion. Voters wanted a choice and they did not feel they had one.
November 7, 2012 12:37 pm
There you go again Rick (and now Musher), wrong about everything once again, as always. For once will you please just make the opposite conclusion in the First Place and give Dave's poor fingers a rest. Musher, if you will stay here long you will soon realize that your actual life experiences mean nothing, you were hallucinating and Dave (Asmith) will soon find a study to sort out your delusions.
And of course, everything was a failure, dem efforts as well as rep ones. Libertarians will rise, the election results lead to that inescapable conclusion. The New Moderate is a left-wing propaganda mill. Hurricane Sandy was a dawdle, Tis but a scratch.
There is a chiropractor who used to run ads in the local paper for many years, every week he had a new study or studies to quote that said that chiropracting cures this disease, that disease, every disease. I think he finally gave that up, but I'm sure he fooled a lot of gullible people for a time. Well. it goes to show there is a study for everything, Any conclusion a person wants, they can find their study.
I think that chiropracting barely cures bad backs at a rate higher than a placebo, let alone cancer and anemia etc. and I think that a study showing how insightful conservatives are compared to others rings quite false this morning. If I had the time to dig up studies that prove my subjective ideas/beliefs all day long I could prove some astonishing things beyond any doubt and bury the New Moderate.
But I have a life, and the political swelling in my brain is sure to subside as the election recedes.
November 8, 2012 8:59 am
Morgan Spurlock had a TV series called 30 days were he took people and yanked them from their comfort one and got them to spend 30 days living under circumstances that completely went against their views and values.
You desperately need to have to spend 30 days with Rush Limbaugh.
November 7, 2012 12:38 pm
The most important consequence of this election is not the vote, the ideology or the partisanship.
It is what happens in the next 4 years.
Though I probably would have prefered to see the GOP lose control of the House.
I see this much different from you I see this as the last gasp of liberalism
Liberals and democrats must put up or shutup. They will have the reigns of government for eight years by the end of Obama's term.
The only times in US history where the economy has remained in the dumps for that long have been under democratic control.
Pres. Obama has already had the advantage that recovery is inevitable. It should already have occurred and it should have been much stronger.
Given half a chance we will recover – strongly.
Despite the fact that numerous factors have started us back towards recession during the election season – I expect the reduction in uncertainty that the election brings to reverse much of that.
But far more than anything in your article the political future depends on Pres. Obama's results.
He has an extremely difficult task ahead of him – and I believe he has gone about it entirely the wrong way.. Worse he appears to have learned nothing, and he now has enormous political debts to pay off. The only advantage he has is that given the slightest chance we will succeed.
Liberals and conservatives alike will all try hard to succeed – regardless of their opinions of the president or congress. Unlike left-wing propaganda – and this site sometimes, no one wants failure.
I want and voted accordingly to give the left the best possible shot at demonstrating that their ideology works. I find myself as I was in 2008 – praying for Obama's success and hoping that everything that I believe is false – otherwise, he and we are in serious trouble.
We have serious problems that the President did not even pretend to address.
We are running a trillion dollar a year deficit and the current level of debt costs us about 1 1/4 % growth in GDP all by itself. For those what wanted a European social democracy – that is what we have. The broadest and deepest safety-net in the history of the country combined with crushing debt.
In the past 12 years we have managed to take the strongest economy in the world and convert it into the mess that the europeans are desperately trying to escape.
My rants aside, liberalism has the best opportunity it has ever had to demonstrate that it can work.
I actually hope it does – but I think the odds of that are long.
My question for the rest of you, is if as I expect our problems continue to get worse, what will it take for you to realize that it is the consequences of these polices ?
Once again Pres. Obama has a republican house to work with Are we going to hear two more years of these rants that everything is the fault of house republicans ?
Remembering that they two were elected – many of them from districts that went for Obama.
I would have preferred a democratic clean sweep. Are real clear test of liberalism.
What we got was something only a "moderate" could love. Though I would remind all the so called moderates here, that if you really are going to try to make the fallacy of moderation work, that means BOTH sides have to move to the center.
In the net few months we have:
Debt Ceiling crisis two – yup we are about to burst through the debt ceiling again, sooner than we thought.
The expiration of innumerable tax cuts.
The start of sequestration.
The rapidly increasing costs of PPACA.
And all this on an economy that is weak and can not figure which direction it is heading.
Musher permalinkNovember 7, 2012 1:59 pm
Thanks Not So Grand Wazzoo. I agree with you that one can find a study that will support anything. It is also hard to know what media outlet or social media set to believe nowadays. I find that personal experience works the best for me now…in other words if I don't see it or hear it with my own eyes, I am always suspicious. Living in the Red, White and no Blue at all state I reside in, that is the experience I have. When someone from the fringes tells me that they want to bury others and see me in hell for my political beliefs, then that is what I have to believe of those that tell me that. Of course not everyone is the same so I imagine many in the Tea Party are not that set on killing the rest of us if we don't believe what they believe. I think what we see is exactly what Rick has described. Moderates listen to everyone and try to make sense of it, while the ends of the political stick only really want to hear about what they believe. I mean when I get in the company truck and drive it the radio is always set to LImbaugh or Hannity type programs. The people that work here are very conservative and getting more so. You never find it tuned to NPR on the other end of the spectrum or stations all up and down the political scale that we have available. Interesting isn't it.
November 8, 2012 11:15 am
Sure you can find one study to support whatever you want, and usually I only cite one or two. But for most of the issues I raise the majority of studies over the past 4 decades arrive at the same results.
Most of the studies I produce that Ian ignores are coming from people and institutions on the left. It is trivial to find something from Cato or Heritage to support the claim that big government fails. But what about studies from the IMF, World Bank, or Christine Romer ?
Further, unlike numerous studies in another area of pseudo science I shall leave unnamed, these are studies based on publicly available data with published methodology.
Everything necessary to reproduce or refute the results is readily available, you can change the assumptions, or the weightings or the filtering and see if you get a different outcome. Put differently they are conducted using the real scientific method.
I am sorry about your experiences in Utah – but my experiences with the blind on the left, right, and middle is pretty much the same. Even here at TNM make a claim that is both common sense and accepted by more than 9 of 10 economists – and you are an extremist racist right wing ideologue …….
Further my own experience has been that the right is far more tolerant of dissent than the left, I spent years arguing about the bible with christian fundimentalists. Most will tell you your going to hell, but they will still listen, the left will not listen to anything that does not fit their world view – not even from a different left faction. The spat between Hitler and Stalin was that of white collar socialism against blue collar socialism.
I live in the deep red part of "Pensyltucky". Despite Ian's rant's in my community I am radical left wing falling off the edge of the earth.
Conversely my brother lives in Berkeley. It is no contest, I would pick the right over the left anyday. My neighors will send you to hell – but they will give you a hot meal and hear you out before sending you on your way. Further most of them do not try to impose their values on you by force.
One of the great errors that the left – and moderates make is confusing force with free choice.
If someone offers you a job, that pays less than you want or in some other way is unsatisfactory, the fact that you may desperately need a job and chose to take it does not mean you were coerced by your employer.
You are forced to pay taxes, charity is free choice. You are forced to go to public schools and endure whatever they teach.
Force is not, not having the choices you want.
It is not being compelled by circumstances in your own life to accept someone else's offer that you would otherwise decline.
November 8, 2012 10:14 am
Since with my ADD I was slow to be ready go to college I did other things first, worked in factories, was a mechanic for quite a few years, worked construction, built houses. Trust me, I've met Rush Limbaugh's world and audience. And I would be the first to say that many of them are not bad people, often racist as hell, but not actually hurting anyone. But those ideas they have do cause hurt, I would think that hyper conservative people who feel the sting of feeling that their ideologies are not respected would be able to understand the sting of not feeling that your actual race is not respected and that you are not respected the moment you walk into a room, but I guess that is too much of an empathetic leap.
BTW, I can also tell you that aside from my vote for Obama, I voted straight republican this time, as usual, those were protest votes against my lefty Dem. state and fed Vermont politicians and all but one, (Lt. Gov.), was futile.
I can also mention that I very nearly ran for the Vermont senate about 15 years ago, as a republican, and not as a moderate one either. After Act 60 was created, I was standing on top of Vermont history, with a pitchfork, yelling no (and I believe I used words like socialist as well). I attended a class put on by the GOP about campaigning, learned about how to use wedge issues, but finally did not pull the trigger on the run because I realized it was futile, even if I got into the Senate I would have been alone, Vermont is hard wired to be a liberal democratic place. Which is also a place of soft and gentle fascism at times, all left is no better than all right.
So, really, I've been there, and probably been more "there" than our resident conservatives and Libertarians who think they know me and have me pegged.
November 8, 2012 11:37 am
Absent forcing them on others ideas no matter how vile ham no one but yourself.
If you are an employer and you are racist sexist and homophobic and you act on that in you hiring choices or with respect to your clients, you do not harm blacks, women or gays – you deprive them of nothing they were entitled to.
But you do harm yourself – you deprive yourself of a broader market, of a broader pool of employees some of which are certain to be better than the white men you chose instead.
And i will open the business down the street competing against you serving those you will not, and hiring the best of those you will not,, and absent government interference my business will prosper and yours will fail.
Discrimination is a self punishing act.
Further until you can grasp what does and does not constitute force or harm, you are doomed to chase solutions that are guaranteed to fail.
November 8, 2012 12:00 pm
Maybe you have been there but it does not seem you have learned much.
Unless you have changed racially, your comments are indistinguishable from the vermont socialists you are ranting about.
Beyond that – why do you believe you know so much about the life experiences of the rest of us ? You portray most of us like we are teens enthralled by atlas shrugged. My perceptions of you are based on your own remarks. Your inability to have a rational logical fact driven dialogue, your reliance on fallacies and ad hominem as nearly your sole means of argument.
I have been in the real world since I was a child – some of my "biography" is in past posts.
I have had to hire people, fire people – even some because of my own failures. I have had to start over numerous times. I have had jobs I loved, and jobs I had to take to pay the mortgage. I contribute both my time and my wealth to those less fortunate. i take Matthew 25:31-46 seriously even if I eschew organized religion. I have come about as close to running for state office as you.
But I would note that despite living in the "soft fascism" of vermont most of your venom is targeted at the right. You do not as an example grasp that NPR is atleast as skewed as Limbaugh, That NYT is far more skewed than WSJ, That nearly all major networks are more skewed than FOX.
Like Rick most of your venom is targeted at the right.
We have a president who has continued unchanged nearly all the worst policies the left complained of with Bush – yet not a peep from you or Rick on most of those.
Benghazi is an unmittigated disaster – irrespective of ideology. Yet you down play it. Aside from the screw ups, are the lies. The whitehouse and the press claimed Romney's response was wrong – when they knew he was right. That is called deliberate lying. I do not care whether you are on the right or the left – deliberately lie to me and get caught and I am through with you. But this the norm once you decide the ends justify the means.
November 8, 2012 10:53 am
Not to mention Army Basic training and AIT during a heat wave in at lovely Fort Benning Georgia. Where I met both white and black soldiers with racial attitudes along with those that did not have them. Speaking of leaving one's comfort zone in every way. At least it was purely voluntary and I was not shipped straight to a combat zone afterwards but only back to Vermont and the Nat Guard.
I play now with a drummer in a jazz band who is conservative, listens to FOX, and who was a marine who played in the Marine band for Reagan on a regular basis. Hell of nice guy, none better, only mildly conservative actually.
Another Reagan connection, during my Act 60 rebellion I became good friends with John McLaughry, who has a free market think tank, ran for Vt Gov. and was a speechwriter for Reagan. There was plenty of mutual respect, but as the rebellion died down, we found a chasm between our ideas on climate science and I stopped receiving his think tank newsletter.
Another very close friend is the former head the Vt. Rep. Party, we were both married to Russians and were tennis buddies and have had a warm friendship for many years. I wrote for his Vt conservative newsletter, (anonymously I'll admit) and fought many (successful) wars against the Vt. Dem. Establishment with him.
Any idea that I have no idea of what the world is ought to be leaving.
I'm a moderate, both extreme lefties and righties make my teeth itch.
November 8, 2012 12:35 pm
Wow, you have conservative friends. Whopy Ding, I have some incredibly liberal ones.
I have had debated policy with Robert Reich, law with Lawrence Tribe and Lawrence Lessig, economics with Paul Krugman, as well as many other luminaries on the left. all wonderful and decent in my exchanges with them.
Regardless, you seem to have learned little from your experiences.
You have said you are a biologist – when deciding the merits of some purported new advance in biology – do you rely on studies that do not provide data or methodology ? or do you more heavily weigh those that others have been able to reproduce that have been subject to rigorous scrutiny, that eventually persuaded even the skeptics ?
Do you buy the conclusions of scientist who rely on maligning those who disagree, who turn the very act of disagreeing into a pejorative ? Do you trust the results of those who do not provide data, who do not provide their methodology, who excoriate and impeded those that ask, who confuse correlation with causation, and who would not have a clue how to tell if a result was statistically valid if it bit them on the ass ?
I have provided you with numerous studies supporting my claims or countering yours.
Further most of mine conform to two hundred years of political economics – much of which even Krugman atleast claims to accept. You call this cherry picking – several of the studies are surveys of the results of nearly every study on the specific subject across the past 40 years – cherry picking my ass. i have provided you with data from NBER, US Census, GAO, CBO, … to back up my claims. I desparately want open government, nothing would better expose the failure of government than public access to the raw data on government performance. You respond with appeals to authority, and ad hominem, and believe with religious fervor that the truth, the right answer is always in the middle – another fallacy. You have actually converted a fallacy into an ideology – and you have done so openly – you might argue with my restatement, but it is still just a restatement of your own claims.
The right is wrong about many things, when it is wrong the truth is NOT found in the middle. The left is wrong atleast as often – again the truth is NOT found in the middle.
Even when the left is right about an issue, they are willing to use bad means to get good ends – and that leaves them wrong even when they are right.
For many if not most problems the resolution of competing views is NOT the middle, or compromise. Even where a problems solutions falls along a curve the peak is not usually at the center, further the peak is the optimum for a single criteria – as an example the best tax rate for maximizing government revenue and the best rate for maximizing economic growth are distinct.
Put differently you can not plot everything on a bell curve with an optimum in the center. In fact most things do not follow a bell curve.
November 8, 2012 1:02 pm
Yes, Dave your utter disdain for the center and moderates has been fully explained in ten million usually insulting or condescending words, and yet here you still are, futilely expecting us moderates to take your extreme positions seriously. You are wasting your time. We know you reflexively believe that all we say and believe is wrong, its an ineffective and utterly boring tactic that long ago lost its punch and does not lead to further interest in your ideas.
In response to your endless repetition, I stand on my right of free speech to be repetitious myself and ask again, where is your own shining light of a Libertarian site where you will promote your own philosophy instead of your endless litany of "everything moderate or liberal is wrong" on the New Moderate? Your wasteful use of your time here make it obvious that your own religion is going nowhere. See Gary Johnson.
November 8, 2012 11:12 am
Dave, sorry but you really are thicker than Missisippi mud or at least you are pretending to be for the sake of continuing your endless argument. The parts of your beliefs that are in Econ 101 are clearly distinct from the parts that are extreme. I can tell that, the world can tell that, you try to make points by pretending that you can't tell that? Please, it says a lot about the strength of your material that you use arguments that are knocked down by a mild breeze.
Yes, you and Paul Krugman have a lot in common, as all who have a basic grasp of the principles of economics has a lot in common. But you and Krugman are both extreme because of the points you Don't have in common, the points where you both take extreme and opposite positions on. Its really simple.
Your libertarian site, when you finally create it instead trying to reeducate us "whinny liberal so-called moderates" ought to be called the New Libertarian Martyr. Everyone loves a good martyr, eh? Actually, not so much.
November 8, 2012 12:55 pm
i provided you with numerous top 10 lists of things 90% of economists believe – probably 80% of what I argue here coincides with one or the other of those.
Now in addition to telling me what i think you are telling me what others think about me.
I am sorry Ian – you have no clue what extreme actually is. And even so, extreme is not the same a s wrong. Galeleo took an "extreme" position – right or wrong ? Abolitionists took an extreme position. Our founders took an extreme position. A position outside the center is NOT inherently wrong.
If you accept that Krugman is an example of the error of extremism – why is it that most of what you accept as correct mimics him ?
Actually some of the most "extreme" positions I have taken derive fairly cleanly from econ 101. Few sane economists will disagree that as tax rates increase the rate of return will decline. Few will disagree that as tax rates increase economic growth will decline.
These are simple applications of supply and demand curves.
Much of what I say about the size of government is not only born out by econ 101 – but also by study after study. Greater economic freedom means better standard of living – that is not only my "extremist ideology" but it is the conclusion of numerous studies across the US and the world. It is the conclusion of such extreme conservative organizations such as the world bank and IMF. Increased social safety nets reduce standard of living – again not just my ideology, but the results of data worldwide.
In the US – what states have the lowest unemployment, highest growth, most improving standard of living, and a net inflow of people ? Look at the electoral college map – they are all red. I provided you with studies of US states – lower taxes, lower regulation – higher growth greater improvement in standard of living.
November 8, 2012 1:13 pm
Did I ask for your studies? Am I interested in your studies? You distort everything you touch beyond recognition. Let someone have the slightest positive thing to say about deregulation or smaller government and you utterly ignore the scale issue and claim them as support for your anti government crusade.
I've taken econ 101, it was my one and only college A+. I do not need you to condescending explain what basic economics are through your distortion field.
I am not going to read one more of your %$#&^ studies only to find out that once again you have completely misrepresented it.
Provide your studies to someone who is interested in them on your own Libertarian website, that would be a great use of your expertise.
If you have anything positive to contribute to the topic of moderation then this would be the place to do it. Otherwise….
i've got a band practice to prepare for, I'm sure you will still be here when I get back and tomorrow and the next day….
November 8, 2012 5:36 pm
"Don't confuse me with the facts. I've got a closed mind."
Rep. Earl Landgrebe (R-IN),
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." (John Adams, 1770.)
"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. Patrick Moynihan
They are not "my" studies, they are those of literally hundreds of economists over the past 40 years, and the overwhelming majority of them draw conclusions that support my claims – right down to we would do better with 80% less government.
Glad you took econ 101 – sugest you find the text. Even Paul Samuelson only questions the laws of supply and demand at the fringes.
Facts, studies, correlations and opinions that contradict yours are not negative.
November 8, 2012 12:47 pm
No, hugged no trees lately or ever, Cartman,
My wife is at war with trees, which she carries out using me and my chain saw as her weapon. I just threw another log on the fire.
But I vastly prefer over the top environmentalists with their hearts in the right place to gung-ho right wingers who hate environmental protection in any form.
I did just rebuild the engine of my %$#@ Subaru Forester this year when I wasn't busy obsessively posting here. I'm sticking with Volvos in the future, although they were not designed to be worked on, just try replacing the buried alternator, they also were not designed to break every ten seconds like the ^&%$# Subaru.
November 8, 2012 1:26 pm
So loaded with assumptions.
In truth those "tree huggers" are on net environmentally destructive. It is impossible to reconcile all the different environmentalist views into something that is not inherently in conflict.
The greatest environmental destruction occurs at the hands of the state.
Chernobyl is a beautiful example of what happens when the state manages things – but we have plenty of examples in the US. Far more of the environment has been destroyed by government than all private exploitation combined – yet you fixate on "right wingers who hate the environment" – I am not sure that group exists. What does exist is people who weight their love of nature against their other needs and wants.
The environmental left is responsible for more death and poverty that the worst polluters have ever inflicted. Look up GreenPeace founder Dr. Patrick Moore.
But for the a prior generation of Genetically engineered grains millions would have died in India. The WHO backed down slightly on pesticides and africa was slowly gaining ground on Malaria and other mosquito born disease. The WHO reversed itself and Bill Gates wasted $1B on mosquito nets – to zero effect.
We are idiotically tarifing or embargoing sugar from elsewhere, We have banned genetically modified and sterile Super Sugar beets in the US – because they might somehow breed with ordinary ones and create mutants that will destroy the earth.
We recycle paper – the most sustainable product in existance. We have more forests in this country than when the Pilgrims landed. We are ranting about fracking – which even if the worst claims were true is still a much better ecological choice than deep ocean drilling, or even just ordinary 20th century oil fields.
At small cost and little environmental damage we could have oil piped from Canada – a place not know for its political and religious volatility, instead we expensively and dangerously transport it by supertanker from countries it would be best not to have to deal with at all if possible.
And on and on.
I have zero problem with holding people accountable for the actual harm they cause.
I have enormous problems with people who think they have a clue how to properly solve a problem based solely on ideology before the fact.
Those tree huggers you are so found of kill people. They should prey for a forgiving god.
November 8, 2012 5:44 pm
This is the abstract of the world bank study from 2008
Which part am I cherry picking or mis-interpretting.
These are not my words. I can not find a single conclusion or aspect of this that is in anyway at odds with anything I have expounded or offers the slightest glimmer of hope to statists such as your self.
So Am I lying and cherry picking here ?
"Reviewing the economic performance—good and bad—
of more than 100 countries over the past 30 years, this
paper finds new empirical evidence supporting the idea
that economic freedom and civil and political liberties are
the root causes of why some countries achieve and sustain
better economic outcomes. For instance, a one unit
change in the initial level of economic freedom between
two countries (on a scale of 1 to 10) is associated with
an almost 1 percentage point differential in their average
long-run economic growth rates. In the case of civil and
political liberties, the long-term effect is also positive and
significant with a differential of 0.3 percentage point.
In addition to the initial conditions, the expansion of
freedom conditions over time (economic, civil, and
political) also positively influences long-run economic
growth. In contrast, no evidence was found that the
initial level of entitlement rights or their change over
time had any significant effects on long-term per capita
income, except for a negative effect in some specifications
of the model. These results tend to support earlier
findings that beyond core functions of government
responsibility—including the protection of liberty
itself—the expansion of the state to provide for various
entitlements, including so-called economic, social, and
cultural rights, may not make people richer in the long
run and may even make them poorer."
I would also note that the abstract specifically notes that this study essentially confirms earlier studies reaching the same conclusion.
I would happily admit that I have occasionally offered some studies reached the conclusions I wanted to demonstrate but had editorial comments that I did not necessarily agree with.
November 8, 2012 6:00 pm
Here is the NBER link to the Romer and Romer paper on the economic effects of taxes.
NBER headlines this with
"Tax changes have very large effects: an exogenous tax increase of 1 percent of GDP lowers real GDP by roughly 2 to 3 percent."
Are they cherry picking ?
Do you trust Christine Romer – President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors chair ?
What about NBER ?
I can provide links to papers by Paul Krugman about the benefits of Free trade – he received his Nobel for work in a very narrow aspect of trade and until he became a political shill produced numerous papers on the benefits of free trade. As he has aged and become more radical he has convinced himself that his lifes work is essentially wrong – should he give back the Nobel ?
I give you actual papers with real data, that if you passed your econ 101 class you should be able to verify or challenge on your own.
When you deign to do more than rant about cherry picking and froth at the mouth over radical extremist racist …. conservatives (or libertarians as the mood strikes you), what we get are editorials. While there is nothing wrong with those, opinions are not facts.
As a biologist I would hope you are not redrafting the fundimentals of biology based solely on the written opinion of another biologist, no matter how plausible they might be.
November 9, 2012 10:10 am
Dave: Those tree huggers you are so found of kill people. They should prey for a forgiving god.
Dave, you are like having a Jehovah's witness at my door, except that you won't leave and you have camped out on my porch and every time I open the door you shout at me that I'm wrong about absolutely everything and shove your fucking Watchtower in my face.
You still don't get it. I'm not interested in your extreme and at times repulsive worldview, your environmental diatribe was a perfect example of the views of a loon and complete crank. Yes my mind IS closed to your nonsense, there is only a small window of data and arguments and theories that I can consider in one day out of the nearly infinite possibilities and what you are offering does not meet even the loosest standards of interest or credibility, let alone the incredibly tight ones the real world imposes on me and anyone.
If your goal is to convert me to your nasty religion then you are a failure at that.
November 8, 2012 6:04 pm
As we enter a new chapter in fiscal inniatives to balance the budget and reduce spending, keep in mind that the ACA cuts physician reimbursement 29% beginning in January 2013.
The above link provides information on one state that follows physician participation in the program based on applications to participate in the year ahead. Doin a search on "physician participation in Medicare" will provide additional links showing other situations in other states.
Should you have an interest, have a loved one on medicare or approaching that time in their life, or you are approaching that age, you might find this information interesting.
November 9, 2012 1:58 am
Everyone will get in on the game of analyzing why Romney lost.
The left probably joined by moderates here will likely claim because the GOP was too extreme, and blame it on the Tea Party.
Whether that is true or not – and I think it is not, the message the GOP got was "another moderate bites the dust", this country will not elect moderate republicans.
Going into election day Republicans had a 1% advantage in voter registration – I think for the first time in my lifetime. Further Romney was something like a 16 point favorite among independents. Yet Nate Silver and other claiming democrats would be substantially more motivated than republicans to vote proved right – otherwise this would have been Romney in a landslide. That means alot of republicans did not vote. This is one of the big problems with all the claims that the GOP needs to move to the center to get elected – it is false.
Romney lost more votes from the far right than he picked up from the middle.
I fully expect the 2014 midterms to look much like the 2010 ones. And you should expect that the house and senate candidates are going to be more conservative not less.
Republicans are likely to look at these results and note than all the moderate republicans lost.
If moderates want more influence within the GOP – they need to be more willing to vote for moderate republicans. Though frankly it is too late for that.
Democrats and a few republicans like the meme that demographics is destiny – that the largest growing constituencies – hispanics are democratic.
I would note that hispanics blend more rapidly into this nation than any other minority and are both more religious and more conservative as a group to begin with. Third generation hispanic immigrants have a different "racial" classification – white.
Further the most rapidly growing states in the country are the red states – particularly the deep red states. They are absorbing alot of immigrants, and they are not getting any bluer.
One last look into the crystal ball. We are teetering on a double dip recession.
A part of that is downward pressure from the election so there might be some improvement after the election.
But neither a President Romney nor a President Obama was going to do anything of consequence to address those problems. Pres. Obama is already essentially a lame duck. Few presidents manage anything of consequence in their 2nd term. Maybe if Pres. Obama is capable of Clintonesque cooperation with the GOP – but I doubt that.
What little Pres. Obama accomplishes is likely by executive fiat and will almost certainly be bad.
In the unlikely event the republican house cooperates with him on say Jobs bills – the economic consequences of that will be bad.
Over the next 4 years we will add another $4T+ to the debt – which will become even more crushing.
My crystal ball says 2% growth for the next 4 years is the very best we can hope for – that will leave unemployment right where it is, and probably increase the deficit even more. Eventually the Federal Reserve is going to have to admit that it is out of ammunition, and that monetary policy just plain does not work at near zero interest rates anyway. At some point in the not too distant future the Fed will have to chose between allowing the weak inflationary recovery they have baked in, or deliberately causing a recession to forestall inflation.
and just for Ian – these are just my prognostications. They are not for the most part some extremist libertarian insights. They are mostly just expectations based on what is already easily foreseable. There is no reason to expect strong growth anytime soon – nothing has changed that would make that likely – eventually people will start to reinvest – but far more slowly than if they had real confidence. There is no reason to expect that the federal government is going to bring the debt under control. that has never been something Pres. Obama cared about. There is no Safetynet program such as PPACA that has ever cost less than 3 times what was expected. The real costs of PPACA will start kicking in. Price controls have never ever worked before – just take alot at NJ and NY and gasoline after Sandy, Price controls either raise prices, or cause shortages or both. We can probably add another $1T to the debt over the next 4 years just from PPACA.
If you doubt this – go back and look at what medicare was supposed to cost,
Social security was NEVER going to cost more than 2% of wages – FDR guaranteed that. Medicare part D has proved incredibly expensive.
And the war in Iraq was supposed to pay for itself.
Though I do expect to hear the president telling us all how much worse it would have been without PPACA.
Does that future sound like something that is going to get liberals elected ?
Even moderates ?
And if you do not like my view into the future there is only one thing needed to avoid it – Pres. Obama has to succeed at something he has been unable to do in 4 years. He has to solve all or atleast most of the problems above.
I am personally quite happy that Romney was not elected – I do not think he could have done enough to avoid the mess that is coming, and the economic failure of another statist republican would have ensured the continuation of this progressive idiocy until I was too old to care.
Right now as I see it the quicker Obama fails the quicker we can get to the creative destruction necessary to clean this mess up.
And no I am not praying for his failure. I just do not see him changing and therefore it is inevitable.
November 9, 2012 12:28 pm
I will just offer four examples of individuals not voting for Romney. All four aged 26 to 32. Two females, practicing Catholics, two males. All from very republican families. All four fiscal conservative. All four voted for Gary johnson as they could not vote for Obama since they dislike everything he stands for. But they say they could not vote for Romney due to the Republicans position on immigration, abortion and gay rights. They find that they value individual freedoms more than the fear of a fiscal economic problem in the future. They do not believe people in the late teen to 20's brought to US at young age and raised American should be deported. They do not believe in abortion for themselves, but do not believe in government imposing their belief on others. They believe in straight marriage for themselves, but do not believe government should impose restrictions on gay marriage.
So how many 18-35 year old voters believe the same as those four. I don't know. Maybe someone does. Might also answer why women voted 59% to 41% for Obama and why Romney got the majority of the white "bubba" vote.
As for red states not getting any bluer. Look at NC. Rarely ever voted for a democrat for president. And the votes were by large percentages. Then came Obama. Now a state that was always red is barely a red state. Is that because of the influx of northeast transplants and increasing hispanic vote, or is that due to some other changing demographic?
I am not an expert, only commenting on what I see and hear. You decide..
November 9, 2012 12:57 pm
Don't shoot the messenger, I only report what I heard and observed. I did not say they were right. it was meant to let everyone determine if they were with the majority of young voters and women, or were they outliers in their inability to vote for a Republican.
Now another question. If it is determine (as indicated by Newt Gingrich after the election) that the Republican party is out of touch with the majority to make another Republican administration possible, then it has two alternative paths.
1. Change and move to a position on issues that matches the social values of those the party want to attract.
2. Change the social values of those that can not vote for them today so the social values of the Republican Party is no longer a impediment to the younger voter.
However, if it is determined that the Republican Party represents the fiscal and social values of America, then how did the Republican Party end up with a known moderate in place of candidates with much stronger conservative values?
November 9, 2012 4:39 pm
How about Jeb Bush V Hillary Clinton in 2016.
As for the young lady you mention, if its on TV, If its in the MSNBC or other news shows and if its on the internet, it has to be true, right?
Yes, the republicans can take the lead on immigration. Rubio had a plan ready in May that would have allowed young people brought in by their parents to stay in the US due to humanitarian reasons. They would stay using a residency permit and then work on citizenship like other legal immigrants. And that would not have impacted the status of their parents like some other legislation would have.
Needless to say this died shortly after the election campaign started. Not sure why, but I can guess it may have had something to do with the Republican platform and its position on immigration.
But when a tea party darling proposes something like this and its seems to have been shot down, what does that say about the party and being able to attract voters that are not white males?
November 9, 2012 9:12 pm
Well I could agree with that except for the following.
Kid is 1 year old. Raised in America, educated in America, is American through and through. May even serviced in the armed forces (I still don't understand how that happens, but the Dream act say something about serving to qualify)
President is born in America, Raised in a foreign country. Comes back to America in his late teens or early 20's. He is foreign except for his birth certificate.
Which mid 20 year old is really the American?
November 9, 2012 11:01 am
It is impossible to have disdain for moderates, as it is impossible to determine what a moderate means. Everyone here has their own different definition. I have no problem with that – try finding a broad definition of conservative or liberal that all will be happy with.
But I am disappointed by anyone of any political persuasion that thinks name calling is argument, that thinks it is acceptable to accomplish good ends by bad means, that thinks opinion trumps facts.
I am firmly grounded in a libertarian ideology – BECAUSE it is consistent with the real world. Find an actual robust instance where that ideology fails, and I will alter my views. Faith without reason leads to destruction.
If liberalism actually worked I would likely be a communist, but it does not and can not work, and its flaws are structural – they can not be fixed – not even in some progressive light form.
Apparently your new label is "negative". Whatever. It is not negative to note that it is unlikely that what has always failed in the past will succeed today. It is not negative to note that the bulk of data and research runs contrary to your beliefs.
Ultimately I am the optimist – I believe that imperfect humans free to do anything but harm others will inevitably produce a continually improving world. Even the my "dark" view of our immediate future, fraught with recession and worse is still a continuously improving world. The greater our freedom is the greater the improvement in our standard of living will be, but even across the recent recession our circumstances have improved – only a little, but still improved.
You are failing by your own definition of moderate. Faced with the failure of the state to deliver on its promises – you seek more promises from that state. Choosing between more freedom and less you pick less. In nearly every instance where the moderates here could choose between more individual freedom and more state power they have chosen more state power. How is that moderate ?
Confronted by a problem – and all our problems of consequence are the result of government, few here ever think – is there a way to solve this with less government and more individual freedom ? Whatever problem tickles your fancy – the answer is always – government should do something about that. You conclude government is corrupt and then decide that can be fixed by giving the government more power.
Liberals at least have an excuse – they actually believe in more government as a force for good. That is the essential core value of liberalism – and if that is what you actually believe, then quit hiding behind moderate as a label and embrace what you truly are – liberal.
My definition of moderate based on what it appears to mean here would be pessimistic tepid liberal. Eeyore progressivism.
November 9, 2012 12:48 pm
Dave, don't you see, after calling environments a group killers who "should prey (sic) for a forgiving god" you have simply got no leg to stand on about name calling. I would say that you are the most enormous hypocrite I have ever encountered, but that would be rhetoric, I'm sure that I must have met your equal somewhere.
Your environmental rant combined the ethics of a tobacco company lawyer with the intellectual machinery of a lunatic. And in general, you have the persistence of a bad case of the clap. But I won't go so far as to say that you are actually evil or a killer, so I am safely behind the line you have set out in the field of over the top insulting accusations.
I'm outa here for a good political vacation, your never ending fanatical extremism has ruined the New Moderate for me. Others too I suspect. Oh don't worry, no one is trying to infringe on your rights to yammer perpetually and murder logic until your head finally spins right off. Knock yourself out.
November 10, 2012 1:04 pm
Re-read your own post here – it is just dripping with malice and ad hominem. Is this really who you are ?
Anyone who says things you do not like
Has the ethics of a tobacco lawyer
The persistence of a bad case of clap
Is not quite actually evil or a killer,
On occasion I accuse some groups of being evil – because they use bad means AND because the ends that actually accomplish are bad.
Is there someone here who believes that any good aspiration can justify bad means AND bad ends ?
Numerous monsters of history have wrapped them selves in some purportedly good cause but their means were evil as were their ends – and we recognize them as evil.
My ends and my means are the same – the greatest possible individual liberty consistent with a non-violent society.
In what way is that evil or wrong ? Where is the instance where pursuing that has required doing evil to anyone ? Where is the instance where the consequences of that have been doing evil to anyone ?
November 10, 2012 1:05 pm
I think we have found a clear point at which we depart from each other.
I beleive that people who advocate for policies that have resulted in and will result in death, disease and starvation for millions of other people are actively engaged in evil – regardless of any spin you can put on their motives.
The Nazi's,, Pol Pot, Mao, Khmer Rouge, Hutu, ….. had their own story about how what they were doing was good not evil.
And back to the ad homimen I have absolutely zero problem with seeing tobacco companies pay for the harm they caused – but I want them to pay those they harmed not government protection money so those they harmed get screwed – If you have a problem with that, then I think you are the one with the ethics of a tobacco lawyer.
I expect that when someone wraps themselves in some mantle of moral superiority, claims to be doing some great good, and steals from others to do so, that at the barest minimum they are not actually causing more harm than good.
I do not care what the issue is. Using bad means AND achieving bad results is evil regardless of what claim to goodness you can make.
Is that some extremist position ?
November 9, 2012 12:29 pm
Rich, Can I choose to spend time with neither? That would be my first choice.
Other notes:
To best get at those subaru spark plugs remove the windshield washer reservoir and the box that holds the air filter and the MAF sensor. I had to replace fouled plugs so often that I just left the washer out of the car. My engine rebuild was actually just replacing one head, that had a loose exhaust valve guide and replacing all the seals so that I do not not spend nearly as much on oil as gas. Great winter cars but when it dies I would not take another Subaru as a gift.
I yield to no one in my love of Germanic composers, Bach first of all, and the sublime Schubert. In Mozart's hands, even Opera sometimes sound good, he was that much of a genius.
Rap music is just noise, Bill Cosby said so, your taste has not led you astray.
Wearing your pants so low that your underwear is fully revealed is idiotic, even subarban white kids in Vt do it, is it a racial thing?
Wishing for an Obama-Biden plane crash, even as humor, is over the line. Really
Good luck to you, I'm putting my political addiction on the shelf for a good long storage period, months I hope, if I'm lucky, years. We will see.
November 10, 2012 1:43 pm
I have no expertise in Suburus. I will defer to your wisdom.
But we share opinions on music.
So what do you want to do about Rap ? Or exposed underwear ?
I agree it is offensive.
November 9, 2012 12:55 pm
I have clearly not focused as much on Healthcare as you have. But the information I have read has claimed that Doctors are leaving the profession – not in hordes, but still in greater numbers than we can afford. And that there is a growing shortage of Doctors – before factoring in PPACA.
Either there was no crisis of medical care for the uninsured – i.e. they were receiving treatment anyway, and the only change PPACA makes is forcing the uninsured into the system – or there was a real problem – in which case there is no possibility that we can magically instantly come up with the number of doctors necessary to provide them with care. I suspect the truth is in the middle. But it does nto really matter the bottom line is either it was a lie when we were told there was a problem or it was a lie when we were sold PPACA as a solution.
I have noted over several decades that Doctors have been transformed from one of the nations largest groups of entrepeneurs to essentially highly paid employees. Fewer and fewer new doctors start their own practices. They are typically not even partners in larger practices. They are demanding 50 or less hour work weeks and limited on call time, and taking pay cuts in return. This is all fine – and might even improve care, but it significantly increases the necescary number of doctors.
Medical schools have always had more applicants than positions I am not sure that is meaningful. Is the quality of the applicants increasing or decreasing – that is more significant.
Regardless, most of what I have read is that the medical schools can not generate the necescary number of doctors BEFORE PPACA, and are unlikely to be able to do so for a long time.
Further more and more practices are dropping medicare – again not a majority, or a landslide, but still a major problem.
I was not specifically trying to malign foriegn doctors. I favor open immigration. No fences, check for criminals and that is about it – if you want to come – come. Citizenship should be somewhat more difficult certainly not automatic) but not unattainable. This poses a problem with the welfare state – the real answer is just to eliminate it. Immigrants do not come here for welfare, but granting anyone from anyone entitlement to the free ride that no one should have is irreconcilable with open immigration.
There is ALWAYS a problem with foriegn doctors. Starting with the fact that they are from different cultures. I am still happy to welcome them, but we must expect that even the best foreign doctor from an english speaking country will not have the same culture and that effects communications. I would with people from all over the world. It is wonderful. But presuming a broad core of shared values and culture is a mistake.
All professional organizations and licensing are about restricting access to the profession. Why would anyone expect the AMA to be any different. I believe there are stakes licensing tanning specialists now. Even North Carolina is trying to jail a food blogger because he does not have a nutritionists license.
I am sure this will spawn much ranting and blabbering – but just eliminate all manditory licensing. Contrary to popular belief that does not mean that suddenly drug dealers will be doing structures for sky scrappers, or the high school dropouts performing open heart surgery. Anyone here NOT check the credentials of their doctors ? Why do we need the state for something we already do ourselves ? Further we have increasing online services to report on the quality of everything from our plumber through our surgeon. Anyone here beleive Donald Trump will hire someone incompetent to do the structures of his next real estate venture – because they are a bit cheaper ?
As Ron Paul noted in the debates – if you woke up tomorrow and Heroin was legal – who here would rush out to shoot up ? As numerous nations have found the meer presence of a law – even with intensive enforcement does not significantly change the behavior of those who want what the law denies them.
Drive any highway in this nation – how many of us obey the speed limits ? In many places drive the speed limit and you will get killed.
For all you regulation nuts – if you are unwilling to meticulously obey every single minor law imposed upon you – why do you expect others to obey the mountain of mostly stupid legal impositions upon them ?
November 10, 2012 2:26 pm
Your comparisons to 2004 seem very on point.
Bush/Rove won by getting out their base and because kerry was an abysmally bad Democratic candidate generating no enthusiasm.
I think that Romney tried very hard to fire people up – but he failed.
There was alot of talk about republican voter supression – but the major acts of voter supression (which I beleive are legitimate) were by Pres. Obama.
Obama has won – but he really has no mandate.
His entire campaign was – don't elect republicans – they suck worse.
He succeed – but in doing so, he can claim no mandate – because he did not ask for one.
He ran asking us essentially as the first Bush did to "stay the course" and he won on that.
But he also got essentially the same congress – with a small number of additional libertarian and tea party pickups.
We have essentially voted for more of the past two years. And that is pretty much what we got. We have the same president, but we have pretty much exactly the same house, and senate. The republicans did not make the gains they had hoped for in the senate but did not have the losses that were projected in the house.
And that is going to matter alot very shortly.
When Pres. Obama says "elections have consequences and they elected me president" the response is and the same voters gave republicans a strong majority in the house, and a sufficient minority to fillibuster the senate.
We spent $3B on an eternal election to change nothing.
November 10, 2012 3:50 pm
Now we are speculating on what comes next.
We are about to run into the debt ceiling again.
Having negotiated fake spending cuts last time, both sides are now whining about them – certainly neither has the temerity to insist on more cuts.
We have multiple tax cuts expiring.
What really needs to be done in every instance is patently obvious, but politically impossible.
First I need to note that in all instance below spending cut actually means reduction in the rate of increase – absolutely no one is discussing real spending cuts. But the language of politics is has been so distorted – to make it easier to lie, that we lost touch with the truth almost a century ago.
We need to match further increases in the debt ceiling with further decreases in spending over the next decade Even that kind of agreement is ludicrous. it is agreeing to pay for the crack of current spending from our future, but atleast that is better than pretending we do not have to pay at all.
The cuts negotiated in 2010 should remain untouched. Cut defense, cut whatever.
The payroll tax holiday, unemployment extensions, and the Bush middle class tax cut need to end. Two of these will hurt me personally and significantly, but they were abysmally bad ideas from the very begining. You can not cut taxes on the middle class without cutting government spending. You can not cut social security or medicare taxes without cutting social security or medicare. The negative economic impact of increased taxes on the middle class are small. If you want more revenue the only practical place to get it is from the middle class.
The Bush upper margin cuts should be left – in the most optomistic view they will generate negligible additional revenue, and the negative economic impact will large.
While the above is what anyone with a wit of economic sense would propose – and all of the above ONLY addresses immediate problems, it totally ignores the real looming problems with Social Security and Medicare. There is not a snowballs chance in hell we will do ANY of these. In fact it is nearly virtually certain that we will do precisely the wrong thing on each of these. Sen. Reid is demanding a $2.4T increase in the debt ceiling before the end of 2012 – that number is pure politics. It means that the debt ceiling will not be a political issue again until after the next mid-term election.
My personal advice to the GOP – find a way to give the democrats absolutely everything they want while assuring that the political responsibility for the consequences falls squarely on them.
Winning on one or two – or even all of these issues is totally meaningless – absent willingness to tackle the real monsters in the closet – an existing debt level that will depress the economy for atleast two decades and a social security and medicare deficits that will require draconian measures.
The lesson of the 2012 election is that the electorate has not yet grasped the seriousness of our problems nor where the responsibility lies. Neither party nor candidate was serious or honest about the problems we face.
If the public and left think higher taxes, greater debt and more government spending are the road to prosperity – then give it to them. Sometimes it is possible to learn from past history. Sometimes you have to learn from the history you make. Sometimes the gods punish you by giving you what you want.
In the aftermath I am reading articles about the "death of american exceptionalism" – for that to be true there would have had to have been a choice that preserved it.
I see this more as the last gasp of progressiveness. The Tea Party revolt of 2010 was wonderful – but premature. Four years like Pres. Obama's first two would have permanently falsified liberalism. The Tea party victories in 2010 were too early and laid the foundations for the current results.
2012 gave the left no mandate – but I will offer one anyway. The next four years are yours. Do what you wish and be judged by the results.
Given the choices that were available – this is the outcome I voted for. It is my hope that in 2014 and 2016 the failure of liberalism will be self evident – even to moderates, and atleast one party will be willing to do what is necescary.
November 10, 2012 7:25 pm
I just want to step in and defend the younger generation for a moment. I am a fan of many classical works, and visit our local symphony monthly. I was very lucky as a child to have an aunt very well versed in classical music. She shared her passion with me, and it has stuck to this day. I also enjoy hip-hop, or rap if you prefer. I am sure that your parents and grandparents hated the culture of the youth that you were once a member, just as some of us may dislike the current pop-culture. Young people wearing scandelous or shocking clothing is nothing new. Teens are not concerned with function, as I was not as a teenager. There was a time Elvis and Jerry Lewis were seen as leading teens to the devil. My youth is all but gone, but not so far gone I can't remember. You don't like the music or fashion because it is not designed to be liked by you. It is not mindless, or ignorant. It is just different.
November 10, 2012 8:21 pm
I have read the comments concerning immigration, some form of the dream act, sending everyone home including those that were brought to this country at a young age and are still illegals into their 20's and other comments with much interest.
I might be one of those bleeding heart liberals disguised as a conservative when it comes to this subject. I have read that over the next ten years, the hispanic eligible voter population will increase by 50,000 each month. (Yes I saw it on the internet, so that has to be right huh?) But if that is correct, then that means over the next 4 years the hispanic registration will grow 2.4 million and in ten years that will grow 6 million. And where are a large number of these voters coming from?
Many, if not most, are children that were born in America, have an American birth certificate and are legal.. That is due to the 14th amendment defining citizenship. So when they begin voting, will they vote for a party that is looking at ways to allow illegals to stay in the country under certain circumstances, or will they vote for a party that has a platform that requires all illegals to return to their home country and apply for entrance to the US.? Since these same illegals are these voters parents, I have a strong suspicion that they will vote for the party that wants to find a way to allow their parents to stay.
Since Obama carried states like NC by just a few thousand votes and NC has experienced a 117% increase in hispanic voters since 2000, does anyone really think NC will be in play for the republicans when we almost double the hispanic registration in 10 years? And I bet that 2016 will be a blue color for NC also if we just have a 40% increase by that time.
Take a look at the last few presidential elections and add 75% of the 2.4 million or 6 million to the democrats presidential voter total and see what impact that has on the elections in the future. If you have time, apply that growth to the swing states and you might find Arizona becoming a blue state by that time.
November 10, 2012 8:50 pm
I'm Really trying to take that political vacation, but I one last political convulsion to get out of my system. First, I have to share the fact that according to the mass pooled media exit poll Moderates voted 56-41 Obama and we made up 41% of the electorate. We moderates determined the election. Again. Like usual in the good ol USA.
Liberals (25%) voted 86-11 Obama, Conservatives, (35%) voted 82-17 Romney.
Breaking it down instead into independents, dems, and reps shows, once again, that moderate is Not a synonym for independent: independents (29%) went 50-45 Romney. Independent is not an ideological leaning, it simply means people who are not party members, in quite a few cases too far to the left or right.
A low turnout? Heh, Better find a new theory.
1996 49%
2000 50.4
2004 56.2
2008 61.6
2012 57.5-60%
2008 was a huge, even historic turnout, and 2012 is only a bit behind it, all votes are not yet counted.
From USA today:
"From the beginning, President Obama's re-election strategy relied on replicating the historically high voter turnout from 2008.
He didn't quite do that — but it was close enough. (Oh failure, failure, failure, woe is Obama.)
Preliminary data suggest that turnout this year may reach 132 million, for a turnout of about 60%, said Michael McDonald, a voting expert at George Mason University. That would fall just short of the 135 million who voted in 2008…."
In an orgy of political inebriation I read articles all over the internet for a day, the worst I found was in Salon, it was written by a repulsive young lefty woman, about how Romney's concession speech was not gracious. If I had magical powers I would have picked her up with an invisible hand and deposited her in one of the deep manure pits Vermont farmers save cow shit in prior to spreading in on their cornfields. What a &^^%$# coldhearted *&^%$.
What a horribly painful moment in a life, to barely lose the presidency after having worked on in for a decade. Romney was quite gracious at that soul wrenching time, my heart went out to him and his circle.
But don't worry I'm not going soft, my heart did Not go out to Donald Trump, Karl Rove, or Ted Nugent, all of whom had election night meltdowns that still make me smile. The thought that somewhere in America Donald Trump is suffering (even if it is actually in a hot tub in Rome with Berlusconi and a dozen under-aged Bulgarian women) fills my malicious little heart with joy, to be honest.
I do not really expect that many in the GOP will come to the conclusion that seems obvious to us evil progressives, but Romney made a 5 point leap in the polls after turning to the center in the first debate and well, see above about the moderate votes…
My evil liberal twin is praying the message will not be understood.
Now, really, ta, ta, 2012 political chat and I'm sure many are tired of hearing me say it without doing it.
November 12, 2012 1:24 pm
complain as you wish but there are only a few possibilities.
Low turnout is one of few where the math actually works – where the pre-election polls, exit polls etc. as well as the breakdown can be conformed with the results.
Regardless, it is early and I am not personally tied to any thesis.
I am happy with the results. I do not want the party with the only chance of being fixable to be responsible for the coming mess.
I could really care less if 100% of voters voted, and if that chose Obama unanimously.
We are on an unsustainable course. Progressive policies are self punishing acts.
We will continue to get beaten for our economic ignorance until we learn – or until we fail.
Your choice.
November 12, 2012 2:14 pm
I guess you are demonstrating that you can be equally nasty to those on the left.
From what I am reading Obama received less total votes in 2012 than John McCain in 2008.
That is not a highly motivated democratic base.
But it also means Republicans were even more demoralized.
The next big question will be If republicans sat out this election – and it appears they did, which republicans ?
If "moderate" or Establishment republicans failed to vote, then the GOP needs to move left as all the pundits are claiming.
But if it was the right that sat this out then the next GOP candidate is going to either look like Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, and is probably going to win.
There also appears to have been a surge in the youth vote – which is unusual, young people are very politically active but as a rule do not vote.
November 12, 2012 2:42 pm
The different between 57.5 and 61.6 is 4.1 percent.
Obama's victory will be at best 3% of the popular vote.
I am still trying to get good information on relative turnout, but as Obama 2012 got less votes that McCain 2008 that strongly suggests a big drop in republican turnout.
Nate Silver is showing a 6.8% drop in voting from 2008.
several places are showing a distinct drop in white voters.
Several pundits are calling this like 2004.
A generally unpopular candidate with a tremendously supportive base.
I thought Bush was dead in 2004 Instead he won – by just about the same margin as Obama and picked up a few unexpected Senate seats.
Numerous pundits wrote of the Democrats after 2004 – if you can't beat Bush who can you beat ? We are hearing the same chest thumping now.
I would note that there is one single issue that Republicans could shift on that would have radically altered the outcome – immigration.
Pres. Obama has been abysmally bad on immigration. He has deported more people in 4 years than Bush did in 8. – and in a weak economy too boot.
it increasingly appears torpedoing the Dream Act was an astute political ploy.
Getting it passed was easy – but would have required bi-partisan cooperation.
That would not have line latinos up as a democratic voting block.
Implimenting it by executive order allowed him to take sole political credit and look like a latino hero – at the expense of doing real good.
If the GOP ever grasps that it must soften its stance on immigration – the GOP is actually already as pro-immigrant as the democrats, it just spins the issue worse.
even a small shift in hispanic voting could be catastrophic to democrats.
Many republicans have noted for years that hispanics are a natural republican constituency.
November 12, 2012 12:18 am
I understand that the congressional leaders and the president are set for a series of meetings. With the serious problems ahead, let's hope they can now work together and do what is best for all of us. Though I did not vote for Obama, I am hopeful that during his second term there will be less venom and more teamwork from both sides. I am encouraged by some of the news I am hearing. I understand talks are underway to reduce corporate taxes by almost 11%, while enlisting exceptions for those corporation sending jobs oversees. I also hope that both sides can work together to lower spending, and ensure an adequate revenue stream. Now that re-election is off of the table, both sides might be able to set aside their "holy cows" and give concessions were needed. Some new revenue will be needed and some cuts will have to be made to all areas. I am moving forward with optimism.
November 12, 2012 1:08 pm
Do you beleive that any increase in the debt ceiling will be matched by equal reductions in long term spending ?
If not, regardless of whether the results are bipartisan or rancorous, we are doomed.
The fallacy of moderation is the belief that the answer to all problems lies in the middle.
We can all go off the cliff in harmony together.
Do you believe that the prior sequestration cuts are going to remain. If not we are in trouble.
Do you believe that cuts in taxes on investment will remain ?
If not we are in trouble.
In fact even if we make every choice related to the impending so clalled fiscal cliff correctly. It is unlikely we will have done more than buy (at a pretty steep price) more time before getting thwacked by the real fiscal cliff.
We are spending $1T/year too much, with little hope of reigning that in any time soon.
And the problem will get worse as Social Security slides into the red.
November 12, 2012 12:14 pm
The parable of the Broken Traffic Light
November 12, 2012 12:18 pm
The fallacy of Job Creation
November 12, 2012 12:24 pm
Regarding your off shoring jobs non-sense.
This is all really quite simple – you can have peoples standard of living improving, which means constantly destroying or treansfering uproductive jobs elsewhere while creating newer, better more productive ones, or you can allow standards of living to decline.
There is no happy medium – and even if there was, you would just be chosing which group to punish to maintain the status quo.
Creating jobs – even good jobs is pretty easy. Finding people to do them is harder. The best jobs program we could possibly have is a labor market that grasped that just staying in the same place requires increasing skills each year. Actually getting ahead requires significantly increasing skills.
Create more value, you receive more value. Not only is it just that simple, but there is absolutely no other way to better lives.
November 12, 2012 12:48 pm
regarding this nonsense of sudden decline in standard of living a decade ago.
Please document. This claim does not correspond to any of the data I have seen.
Absolutely the gains in wages over the last three decades have been greater for those at the top – but though small they have also occured at the bottom.
Further that data ignores – what census data reveals that the those in each group are not the same from decade to decade – we still move upward through 2-2.5 quintiles during the course of our lives. but differently the odds are that the pering in the bottom quintile in 1980 was in the middle quintile today – that is a dramatic improvement in standard of living.
Eventually we all die – at that point we cease to be an income statistic.
Beyond that NBER data confirms that independent of wages the actual wealth of those in the bottom quintile is about twice what it was 3 decades ago.
I will be happy to agree this recession has hit everyone – including those at the bottom, but unless I am misreading you – that is not your argument.
I will also be happy to agree that Bush mismanaged the economy – in much the same wags as Pres. Obama is and probably as Pres. Romney would have.
Government can not create jobs, wealth, prosperity – but it can destroy it.
If you want to improve the standard of living for everyone you can only do that by:
Producing more and more.
There is no other way at all. Redistribution does not change the standard of living.
Producing more and more means more automation, more technically difficult high skill jobs and less and less low skill jobs.
So long as a nation is capable of increasing what it produces – outsourcing at any level is always a good thing not a bad thing. It releases labor to more productive uses.
But it is especially good to outsource jobs from the bottom.
The alternative – rather than outsource lower paying jobs – increase immigrants to do those low paying jobs.
The pay for doing exactly the same task is guaranteed to inexorably decline. So long as anyone can benefit from being more productive, there will always be downward pressure on all prices – including wages.
You are not fighting republicans, democrats or even libertarians – you are fighting the tide.
You want to dictate that the world should work different than it does.
You are on the wrong side of Humes Guillotine.
You can not cross the is-ought barrier.
Maybe the world "should" work differently – but it does not, and you can change it no more than you can change whether the sun will rise.
November 12, 2012 12:59 pm
My hope for failure now – is rooted in the so called "moderates" here.
I am reminded of Godspell
"Alas alas for you
Lawyers and pharisees
I send you prophets, I send you preachers
Sages and rages and ages of teachers
Nothing can bar your mood
Blind guides, blind fools
The blood you spilt
On you will fall!
This nation, this generation
Will bear the guilt of it all!
Alas, alas alas for you! Blind fools!!"
You can learn from history or you can repeat it.
The good news is we have an opportunity to fix things before the real fiscal cliff.
The bad news is no one – not moderates, not the right, not the left is discussing anything sufficient.
You have essentially two options – tough choices now or far tougher ones later.
Everything making up the so called "fiscal cliff" is inconsequential compared to what is coming.
Political analysts are arguing that demographics is destiny.
Well all too soon the pie being carved up by those on social security and medicare and those on welfare state entitlements is going to be too small to serve both.
You have sown class warfare – you are likely to reap it.
Unless they are prepared to role up their sleeves now and make tough choices, major progressive constituencies are going to war against each other.
Difficult choices today – or far more draconian ones later.
This nation – this generation will bear the guilt of it all.
November 12, 2012 3:00 pm
Moderate, left, right,conservative, liberal, centrist, none of it matters with what we have in Washington today. You can see it developing already. Obama will not negotiate on higher tax rates for the wealthy and will veto any legislation that comes that does not include that stipulation. Patty Murray has taken the hard line in the senate that their will be tax rate increase for the rich. John Boehner has taken the hard line that there will not be rate increases, but they would negotiate revenue increases through elimination of deductions.
Who blinks, the democrats allowing republicans to defend their reputation of low tax rates, or democrats defending their positions on everyone pays an equal share.
The outcome of lower rates and fewer deductions most likely would result in the same outcome, but whose reputation is most likely to take a hit if some compromise is reached.
Anyone bet we reach the side of the clift before that compromise is reached?
November 13, 2012 7:48 pm
The only possible deal is through reform.
Though just about every economist in creation would tell you – lower rates less deductions, One of the primary impetus's is political.
Democrats can spin anything. They will successfully spin a revenue neutral flat tax as an increase for the wealthy – haven't they been claiming that Buffet pays lower taxes than his secretary ?
BTW I do nto actually expect a flat tax though that would be an excellent idea.
There is no problem with raising capitol gains taxes – but you must lower or eliminate corporatate taxes concurrently or destroy the economy.
Capitols gains tax rates are low because the money has typically already been taxed and doing so twice is incredibly economically destructive.
Ignoring "policy" and focusing on politics.
If republicans get lower rates and less deductions – even if revenue increases, that can still be sold as a tax cut. If democrats get more revenue – and new revenue will come for the rich, they can walk away.
But no republican and few democrats can vote for an actual tax increase and expect to get re-elected – and that is how it should be.
November 12, 2012 9:54 pm
In response to our most recent conversation (it wa a little narrow and crowded). I do think it is a shame the pundits have taken over the political media landscape. However, I do also criticize the candidates and their campaigns as well. Like many, I like to go to the source to get as much data as possible. I go to these candidates web sites and I see little "meat" on the bones. I think that the internet is the best place for the republican to market their philosophy to the new generations and take back their party from the same old talking heads.
I did not suggest taking away or even ignoring their positions on religion, abortion, or any other social issue. I simply want them to be a little more realistic. Few people are going to actually chose their candidate based on abortion. This can be a stance, but does not need to be a focul point. I also think they should speak more to some spending and jobs programs that republican are for. Basically, not preach just to cutting, but also to spending initiatives that would be more attractive to blue collar individuals in construction, dock workers, etc. When candidates spend so much time talking about family values, religion, etc (like during the primaries), it is a turnoff to many. It is a part of who they are as candidates, but in no way is their primary qualifications or platform. They need to reach out to the pro business crowd, but put a little more effort into reaching out to the working class. That was my point. I would argue that they should put a little more emphasis on issues like education, infrastructure programs, etc. that would directly benefit and concern working class citizens.
November 13, 2012 8:00 pm
So what do you sugest as a position ?
Romney flat out said there would be no changes regarding the legality of abortion during his presidency.
The Susan Fluke stuff was nuts – a woman testifies before congress that birth control should be free and you do nto expect a republican push back ?
I do nto care if she testified that milkyway bars should be free. There is no such things as free stuff from the government – only things you have not figured out you are paying for.
PPACA goes out of its way to force religious organizations to sacrifice their values and republicans are supposed to favor that ?
Both parties were falling all over themselves to play for the latino vote except when they were screwing them. I can see little difference between Obama and the GOP as far as Latino's – if anything Obama is worse.
gay marraige was an issue on the ballot in several states – and it won. But it was not an issue in the national election.
I am as happy to trash Rick Santorum as anyone – but Romney was NOT the social cponservative candidate and did not run a social conservative campaign.
I would like democrats to get more rational on numerous issues – starting with you only destroy wealth by "spreading it around" you certainly do not create it.
Even the Obama Buggies remark – great line, but idiotic policy.
I want a smaller military, including a smaller navy – BECAUSE we will be less tempted to stick our nose into everything.
i am not naive enough to think we can have a smaller cheaper more powerful navy.
The fact is we have been able to project more power with less (very expensive) ships. But we are very close to having to abandon the two battle front doctrine. And that has serious consequences.
November 13, 2012 6:06 pm
Why are you surprised by any president getting into bed with Wall Street ?
I have been pointing out to you repeatedly that DEMOCRATS get more in fortune 500 contributions than Republicans. Contrary to the media meme the party most deeply indebted to big business is the left.
I also keep reminding you power corrupts. So long as government has the power to do the things you want it to do, it will be corrupt.
Name a period in time when you think government was not in bed with business, corrupt ?
There is only one way to acheive a lobby-proof government – have a government that offers little reason to be lobbied.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary" James Madison.
you have dismantled most of those controls – and are surprised at the results.
If your design for government requires perfection on the part of our leaders – it will fail.
That is the root failure of communism, socialism and all forms of statism.
It is irrelevant whether in some perfect world it might work. It will not work in the real world of humans.
Despite the ranting about greedy corporate overlords, the most important facet of individual liberty and limited government is that it is the only system that works with imperfect leaders.
If you got anti-corruption measures through congress – who would enforce them ?
It is rapidly becoming evident that the DOJ sat on the Petraius problem until after the election. Mind you I am NOT blaming the Whitehouse, which it appears did not know about this until very close to the election. And things have expanded and now another
General has been implicated.
Then there is fast and furious. The mainstream media has mostly been ignoring this, but the IG's report says this goes to the top of DOJ and may lead to the whitehouse.
The government sold guns to the mexican cartels and lots of people died – including two border patrol agents. There are lots of questions about this program – it either was an abysmally bad idea to begin with OR it was a deliberate attempt to trigger an outcry against guns that backfired. It really does not matter.
The AG has almost certainly lied to congress and is being held in contempt by congress.
Regardless, when you thing the Attorney General of the US might be a crook – who do you call ? Batman ?
Sexual picadellos on the part of GOP congressmen usually cost them their jobs,
Duke Cunningham – our first Vietnam ACE and a republican congressmen went to jail over some dubious fiscal dealing.
What about Charlie Rangel, Barny Frank, Maxine Waters ?
These people are heros – but they are all also crooks, no different from Cuningham.
You also do not understand government very well.
It is NOT immoral to pay money for your own benefit.
It is IMMORAL and illegal to take money as a public servant to alter the way you do your job.
Somehow you seem to think that but for evil corporate lobbiests congressmen would be pure and true.
Atleast those evil corporate lobbiests are completely upfront. There is no secret about what they want or what they will do to get it.
The deception the fraud the immorality, is on the part of members of government.
November 13, 2012 6:15 pm
Tax revenues have slowly recovered.
Despite the payroll tax holiday. Tax receipts in 2012 are very nearly what they were in 2012. The the payroll tax holiday expire and tax revenues will exceed that of 2008.
Yet we have a 1+T Defict.
What does it take before you get we have a spending problem.
There is no amount of revenue that the federal government can not consume.
Tax revenues are greater than 2007, GDP is greater than 2007.
If Government spending were slightly above 2007 levels we would have a $100B defict not a $1T deficit.
Our wages are very nearly as they were in 2007.
So what is the justification for spending $1T more than 2007 ?
Who here would not be happy to just return to the way things were in 2007 ?
Was the safety net too small then ? Were children starving in the streets ?
Were we all cruel self serving bastards with no concern for anyone else ?
Was 2007 a lifetime ago.
November 14, 2012 1:24 pm
Interesting comments concering the fiscal cliff previously posted. So someone straighten me out on the following facts and tell me where I am wrong. Republicans are willing to reform the tax code to increase revenues from the wealthy. Patty Murray has stated she will take the country over the cliff if tax rates are not increased. Obama wants 1.6 trillion over the next 10 years in tax rate increases. Rate increases do not seem to be acceptible to the right. And if the cliff does occur, that is around 1.2 trillion decreased growth of spending over ten years (give of take a couple billion, chump change in DC). Country still has somewhere between 1.2 Trillion and 1.5 Trillion deficit per year. So 1.6 trillion over 10 years is 160 billion per year in increased taxes. And 1.2 trillion is 120 billion per year in decreased spending. Net change in deficit is 2.8 billion per year. Assume deficit at low end at 1.2 trillion. What happened to the other 980 billion or 9.8 trillion over 10 years?
Is there anyone in Washington that has a few brain cells that realizes that what they are talking about is just a fraction of the problem facing this country. Right, left or center, someone has to know what is happening even with the changes they are talking about is wrong. To some,Republicans might have run us into a ditch, but both parties have gassed up the car and are running us off a mountain, forget the cliff.
November 14, 2012 5:58 pm
Further if you increase taxes at the top by 1.6T you will decrease GDP by 3.2T over the same term – or something like 2M jobs. Ultimately you will likely have a net DECREASE in tax revenues and the defict will be worse not better.
Further so long at the debt is greater than 100% of GDP it is going to be very hard to get growth above 2% – look at the past 4 years, that may be our best future.
November 14, 2012 6:06 pm
There is one other factor you are committing – this is Washington – conformance to the laws of mathematics, logic, physics etc.
Obama and Republicans might agree to a reduction in tax rates with as well as limits or removal of deductions and CLAIM that the results are a $1.6T increase in taxes on the uber rich.
Rick and TNM can then jump for joy and celebrate bi-partisanship and harmony, while the real fiscal cliff comes by to whack us all in the ass.
RP permalinkNovember 14, 2012 8:00 pm
jBastiat–The one word strategy you suggested in your last comment is my current mantra– WHATEVER! I'm still in shock over the election, and failure of what I've previously considered bedrock– the collective wisdom of the American people. If we've truly reached the tipping point, where our society consists of more idiots than solid citizens, more slackers than producers, and more people dreaming of instant riches than aspiring to hard earned gains, then WHATEVER may be the watch word from here on in.
November 14, 2012 10:33 pm
This site is turning history revisionist and anti-government / libertarian drastically. I really thought it would tone down after the election. I see now the FDR made the depression worse? Government should not try to help the working class? It's just fine to let US companies send their jobs to other countries? I thought the government was supposed to look out for us. Dave is finally correct… This is not the new moderate. It is officially the New Libertarian. Dave with his insulting "moderate" comments suddenly seem approrpriate since 90% of the comments are libertarian. Libertarians are supposed to be all for personal liberties, but seem to be the most intollerant of other ideas. The libertarian block has forced me to take yet another absence for the sake of my sanity. The old wise-ass will surely leave a remark, to show he has still got "spunk". If you can't find one thing the democrats do that you agree with, you are most likely blind, or unreasonable. That is all I will say for now. I hope everyone enjoys Thanksgiving. Enjoy your families and friends. Remember how lucky we are to have our loved ones and live in such a great country. This is the first major holiday my family in Afghanistan will miss, pray for them (as will I). They are fighting for a cause they believe in for this country, which is admirable wether you agree with it or not. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday. Even you 'Ole Man Bastiat!
November 15, 2012 1:22 am
FDR Did make the depression worse – hat is real history, not the crap you were taught in grade school.
Government has no ability to economically help anyone – beyond providing clear stable law and enforcing it.
The oppinion of the majority of americans has been anti-government for as long as there have been polls – looking at 18th century politics for as long as the nation has existed.
This is not new.
The benefits of free trade are so great even Krugman once sung them. While not politically popular, it is just the truth. Fighting it is like trying to keep the sun from rising.
Both parties are equally guilty of idiotic mercantilist ideas on trade, jobs, etc.
If I have insulted a person, call me out. When noting the stupidity of an argument is banned this is the new fascist not the new moderate.
Have I banned someone else from speaking. Individual liberty includes the right to say totally stupid things. It does not include the right to respect for them.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" – voltaire.
It is freedom to speak not freedom from disapproval.
I support the right of Nazi's or the KKK to march – and I have been at those marches proclaiming the evil of their views.
Yes, I am having a hard time finding anything democrats do that I agree with – because most everything they used to believe that I agreed with they have abandon. I can find more common ground with McGovern than Obama. I have accused Romney of being Obama-lite, but Obama in oh so many ways is Bush III.
Further most of my "attacks" here are not a democrats – but statists (of both parties), if democrats chose to be more and more the party of statism do i have to give them a pass in the name of tolerance ? By the same standard do Nazi's get a pass ?
BOTH parties are abysmal on trade.
BOTH parties are abysmal on immigration.
BOTH parties are abysmal on Drugs.
BOTH parties are indistinguishably bad on foreign policy
Democrats have gone from advocating for freedom and self ownership off our bodies – to claiming that freedom places a duty on others to pay for the wants of another.
It is neither freedom nor a right if it requires action on the part of another.
On most issues that I side with Republicans they are at best just less bad than democrats.
Isnt the cause your family is fighting for freedom ?
November 15, 2012 2:21 pm
The general consensus among historians and economists is that the great depression ended – either with the start of WWII or a few years before as the preparations for war started.
There are few credible economists that believe the efforts of the new deal did any more than make the great depression more bearable.
There are a growing number of economists that are credibly claiming that the Great Depression lasted through the war, and did not end until:
wage and price controls were lifted
Government spending plumetted,
and soldiers returned to work.
There is an increasing body of evidence not just on the Great Depression but on downturns in general that appears to be demonstrating that the actions of government can reduce the magnitude of the decline – but at the expense of substantially prolonging the harm.
Put differently if we had allowed The "too big to fail" banks to fail things would have been worse, but they would have been over long ago and we would be enjoying robust growth by now.
November 15, 2012 6:03 pm
So Rick – is Washington's grass roots lobbiest legislation something that you support or is it an unconstitutional infringement on free speech.
November 15, 2012 9:30 pm
asmith, I would like to read more about this. Don't have access to WSJ and can not find another link on the internet. Interesting that there would not be anything else as important as this may have on freedom of speech. Do you have a link to the actual case information?
November 16, 2012 11:13 am
I have WSJ access, but rarely use it. You can virtually always get any WSJ subscriber only article by googling the title and clicking on the link google finds to get an "article free pass". WSJs paywall is deliberately thin.
They are such evil greedy capitolist bastards
The full article is below
Are you a lobbyist? You might be and not even know it. That's because in more than half the country the simple act of speaking to fellow citizens about issues of public importance can be regulated as a form of lobbying.
The result is a trap for the unwary that may mean fines or even jail time for ordinary citizens who fail to comply with complicated regulations written to cover professional lobbyists.
But can such regulations of ordinary political speech really be constitutional? That is the question the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now must answer in a case the court heard Nov. 9.
Washington state is one of 36 states that regulates such ordinary political speech—or "grass roots lobbying," as the state's law calls it. In Washington, a person who spends as little as $500 in one month urging fellow citizens to contact the legislature and express their support or opposition to legislation must register with and provide information to the state's campaign-finance regulatory agency. The state law is so broad that it covers even people who simply speak with their fellow citizens and have no intention of lobbying governmental officials.
To make matters worse, the law covers speech about "any other matter that may be the subject of action" by the state legislature. At the appellate-court hearing, one of the judges said of the law's broad definitions: "If someone wants to talk about the price of cat food—bang, it might come before the legislature," so the speech would therefore be covered by the law.
As absurd as the law sounds in theory, in Washington it has real consequences for real groups engaging in real speech.
Many Cultures, One Message is a Seattle neighborhood group that works to fight eminent-domain abuse and other measures that threaten the character and vibrancy of MCOM's diverse neighborhood. The organization's multi-ethnic membership makes it especially wary of the law's intrusiveness. Many MCOM donors and volunteers come from countries ruled by oppressive regimes, and these supporters withdrew from the group in 2010 when they learned that the lobbying law might require the placement of their names and addresses on a publicly accessible, government-run database.
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Conservative Enthusiasts is a self-described tea party group that encourages citizens to promote limited government and lower taxes at all levels of government. After one of the group's sponsors received a warning from the group's fundraiser in 2010 that its financial support for the organization's Fourth of July rally might be publicly disclosed on a government website, the donor withdrew its planned contribution.
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Associated Press
A citizen's convention, in New Jersey, supported by conservative grass roots groups.
Once the Washington law has been triggered, the associated red tape means that grass-roots groups must deal with an absurdly complex array of regulations. The state's own lobbying handbook recommends that groups retain records for nine years; annotate receipts with date, person and purpose; maintain a separate bank account and credit card; and hire an accountant to anticipate and remedy reporting problems. Groups that fail to comply with the law can be fined up to $10,000.
Unable to decipher this maze of regulations, rules and requirements—much less afford a campaign-finance attorney and accountant—Many Cultures, One Message and Conservative Enthusiasts decided that the burdens were too onerous and both ceased their advocacy efforts.
Forcing grass-roots groups to jump through hoops just to talk to the public about political issues is bad enough, but it is also not clear how the public benefits. In a 2011 study, economist Jeffrey Milyo of the University of Missouri found no evidence that regulations on grass-roots lobbying increase public confidence in government, or that disclosure of contributors to grass-roots campaigns provides useful information to legislators or the public.
Simply put, the supposed benefits of these laws are entirely speculative, but the costs to grass-roots advocates and their supporters are substantial.
If the First Amendment protects anything, it protects Americans' right to communicate with fellow citizens and to contact their elected representatives about important issues. That isn't
"lobbying"—it's speaking. The Ninth Circuit would be wise to pull the law up by the roots.
November 16, 2012 10:49 am
Rick, your most basic problem is that moderates in general, and I mean that in the ideological sense, do not do this. Ideological moderates very rarely have an inner fire to talk politics on line. There are plenty of passionate moderates in the world, former NJ Gov Keane (head of the 911 commission and former President of Drew University, where one of my daughter graduated) is an example of a passionate moderate who turned that passion into something. But people like that don't spend time chatting about politics on websites.
You did collect here a small but proud number of actual intelligent and well informed ideological moderates who do post, but yes, the environment is really not suitable to a discussion of ideological moderation and how to harness it. You make your initial constructive essay, Rob comes in and gives his left wing drive by and then the echo chamber starts to roll. TNM IS a conservative echo chamber, exactly as AMAC said, for bashing liberals, democrats and Obama. Very tiresome and no moderate in their right mind is looking for that. The "Benghazi scandal" we could get, if we wanted it (and we don't!) by reading anything Rupert Murdoch has control over.
I checked in out of habit to relax during my work for a minute and found that AMAC had also fled.
So, really, I am pissed. There is a principle at stake here, I'd call it having the decency to honor the purpose of a site dedicated to moderation.
Priscilla, I simply cannot imagine a more rigidly partisan thinker than you, how do you not know it? If you have not married the GOP yet, its high time, before Junior arrives any day now.
And of course the black knight is camped out and is not wired to be reachable by any request that he self regulate. He has a right to do this, damn anyone who can't stand his repetitive, fanatical and entirely not moderate behavior, The main point I have understood from discussions with the black knight is that Libertarianism, if taken to an extreme, is simply a childish expression of an entirely "Me" centered view of the universe. Then couple that to a genetic program that combines obsessiveness and repetition with a complete inability to understand any sentence that is inconvenient to a favorite dogma and forget it, a broken record that will haunt TNM forever waving the Watchtower and screaming No.
Pat and Ron P balance that as libertarians who understand that we are all in this together, and that is a welcome relief from pure dogma.
Rick, it ain't gonna stop. Unfortunately, my advice is to leave the echo chamber to echo by itself and let it alone until it is not fun any more, months, years, whatever it takes, Just don't feed them. I don't know at what point they would get it, but it has to become boring at some point, doesn't it? Sad, but there is no other way, unless you know a way to suddenly locate a large percentage of the tiny number of talkative ideological moderates and bring them here at once to drown out the ideologues.
November 16, 2012 12:14 pm
What is an "ideological moderate" ?
I have spent years here listening to you and other rant that moderate is NOT an ideology and that "ideology" is at the roots of all our problems.
By saying the environment here is not conducive to nurturing "Ideological moderates"
You appear to be saying that the moderate ideology can not compete and thrive in a free market for ideas ? Is that really what you want to be saying ?
As to your attacks on Priscilla and I – rather than rant that we are "rigid", "partisan", "unreachable", "married to the GOP" "fanatical", ……
Why not demonstrate how we are wrong. Though I would disagree with your characterizations – not a single one of them actually means WRONG.
Deal with issues
As to "ME centered" – I have repeatedly said AND demonstrated that your purported empathy that requires stealing from one group for another, aside from being immoral is also destructive to those you were trying to help.
I personally put in alot of time money and effort trying to actually help others.
Even those extreme right wing loons that you chastise contribute as much as 3 times as much of their time and money to helping others as most of the rest – particularly the left.
People are NOT self centered just because you say they are.
An ideology is not self centered because you say it is .
Portraying opposition to theft – even for a purportedly good cause as immoral – is EVIL.
Portraying opposition to things that have enslaved and ruined the lives of the poor and minorities in the name of helping them as "self centered" is EVIL.
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." Thomas Jefferson.
Ian – you are seeking tyranny over our minds.
Only what you deem to be moderate is – and you refuse to actually define that.
You are not interested in addressing the merits of any issue. Your attacks are invective.
You occasionally say pleasant things about some people – I guess we should give you the nobel peace prize.
Make an actual argument – one that is not rooted in character assassination, fallacy, character assassination.
On rare occaisons – when you have been willing to put forth ideas and address real facts and data, we have found common ground.
More than a year ago I told you I could live with your 1% approach to reducing spending.
Yes, I made some specific critiques of it, but I also noted that it was a more significant cut to spending than anything anyone by Rand Paul has offered.
Regardless, the point is that when you can open your mind and deal with the real world and real facts and data, you are an intelligent rational person, with purportedly moderate ideas that even the radical extreme falling off the edge of the world libertarians here can work with.
But when others provide opinions you do not like and then real world facts, data, statistics to support them rather than actually counter facts with facts, data with data, and statistics with statistics, you go into full bore tyrannical rant mode.
You are perfectly free to do so – and I am free to call you on it.
If you want TNM to tilt more in your direction – make real arguments for your values using logic, reason, facts, data, statistics, etc.
You are entitled to win any debate on the strength of your ideas.
November 16, 2012 11:09 am
I really tried very hard to be decent and not to rub conservative noses here after the election, but to see the complete disconnect from reality and the usual mindless GOP partisanship go on and on here… Well, Sorry guys, your side lost and you deserved to lose, richly and deeply and we moderates were the ones who were responsible, in our many tens of millions. We are the "40 percenters." We will continue to frustrate the partisans and you can't stop that by taking over this tiny part of the political universe.
Reading the thoughts of the echo chamber my liberal side is thrilled to death, you never, Never will come close to getting it, your idea of getting it will go no deeper than retorting that you do get it. Not a very effective replacement for actually understanding, finally, that it was not idiots and slackers who voted against your party. Idiots and slackers are preferentially found in the non-voters.
Suddenly discovering Latinos in post-election defeat is not your magic bullet either; to woo them will take more than a few Latino politicians, it will take understanding the latino perspective from some other standpoint than the delusion that they are natural conservatives. If they were, that would have been revealed by now, wouldn't it have? Putting a few persons of color on the GOP convention stage will always be undone by the actual culture of the GOP, some convention goer will have few drinks and forget themselves and throw peanuts at a brown skinned CNN reporter and reveal that good old GOP spirit. And now there is Twitter and facebook, you can't stop county GOP chairmen from being themselves on twitter and facebook, and revealing the GOP culture and "sense of humor", they are gonna do that. You'd have to change your real GOP culture, a thing that is unthinkable.
The idea that (bleeding-heart liberal!) democrats have supported immigration reform out of cynical practicality in order to win latino votes while conservative and republicans will now suddenly embrace it, but only for all the Best Moral Reasons and certainly NOT out of cynical post-election political practicality, oh my god, I hate to use this worn device, but ROTFLMAO, for real. That was the dumbest remark by an intelligent person I can remember. Unbelievable delusional partisan warped reality, its truly fascinating but really really weird to observe. And that is coming from a GOP moderate, what Ann Coulture and Rush Limbaugh will contribute to the GOP brand prior to the next election on the subject of immigration and Latino interests can only be imagined by me, I don't have the stomach to go see for myself today.
If my dislike of and disgust with the endless conservative partisanship of this echo chamber shows, its because it is real, and nothing that I am ashamed of. Tut tuting me for being an ideological moderate on TNM is not going to work. I never claimed that moderate equals perpetually nice.
November 16, 2012 12:30 pm
You want to go after conservatives regarding the election – go ahead.
Have I ever claimed to be conservative ?
Have I ever claimed Romney was the answer ?
I will admit to having misread the teas leaves in this election – and I am actually unhappy that the GOP retained control of the House.
I WANT the left to get its chance to do precisely what it wants.
I WANT Nancy Pelosi back as House Speaker.
I want their ideas to get a real opportunity to demonstrate their effectiveness.
I believe they will fail drastically and rapidly.
And we desparately need to establish that sooner rather than later.
I WANT the left to have the freedom to do exactly what they think is necessary to fix things.
I think this election demonstrates precisely how important that is.
This is a great conflict of ideas. Pres. Obama decisively won the 2008 election based on his. He mostly won the 2012 one without ideas by disgusting so many of us with the political process that we did not vote, and he did that openly.
Regardless, we are at an inflection point where nearly all the progressive ideas of the past 75 years are all failing nearly concurrently.
Let progressives attempt to fix them. I want them to have full freedom to do so – but I also want them to have all the blame when they fail.
I want the small carnage that I believe would happen if Obama is given full reign rather than the more massive disaster that will occur if we wait.
I have more faith in people than progressives and moderates.
I do not necessarily believe they are right on specific issues at any given time,
but that eventually – no matter how much propaganda they are inundated by they will get things right.
It is the moderates and progressives that do not trust people, that want to restrict what they can hear.
November 16, 2012 12:35 pm
TNSGW…What you say concerning the defeat of the GOP during this election has merit, but the discussion that the loss was due to the hispanic vote is only partially true. Not too many people agree with me on this issue, but when women, the largest voting block in the country vote at a rate of 18% more for Obama than Romney, that is almost impossible to overcome.And that is primarily the result of younger women voting for Obama than older women.
When you have a group such as this that favors reproductive rights for each woman, even though they may not favor abortion as an alternative for themselves, they will vote for the one that supports there position. The younger voter is more concerned with individual freedoms than with fiscal matters.
Couple the young voter favoring individual rights and women favoring choice with the hispanic voter that sees the Democrats as more supportive of hispanic rights and you have the problems that the GOP is facing today.
Now is it actually their positions or is it the message? Have the Democrats painted the GOP as the "Grumy old white mans party", or is the GOP really out of step with the majority of voters? Someone smarter than me will have to determine that. I can only decide from personal experiences and what I see happening in my family.
November 16, 2012 12:48 pm
Reproductive rights. Code for abortion? If so, that would be terminating a life, not removing a gall bladder. Is that what young women really want? I hope not.
Why not just smother them when they are born? Less mess.
I know that sounds harsh but I have had enough of the codes for what we do to each other.
As to the other issue: birth control. Is anyone seriously considering restricting this? Ah, no.
Obama is simply the worst pimp in history.
November 16, 2012 1:45 pm
Anonymous..First I do not believe that you could sway too many women into voting for one party or the other simply by providing contraceptives in health care plans. But yes, they have been able to package this along with other womens rights to make the message that the GOP does not support women.
Now for abortion. You have taken a very strong position on abortion from what I can read into your comments. I can not say that is right or wrong as I may have very different moral values than you have. I can not say that supporting abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is right or wrong as those individuals that believe in that position may have very different moral values than I have.
What I can say is your values are not going to be acceptible to a large percentage of young women. They are not going to change their minds overnight, or in the next 4 years. They may come to accept that abortion is not acceptible, but that change will take many years to develop. And no political party, political platform or laws will make that acceptible until those women begin the process to move from abortion being a right for everyone to one where it is not acceptible. And in many cases, that change will end where they do not accept abortion for themsleves any longer, but do not accept forcing their views on others.
So, the question becomes very simple. The answer is very complicated. Does the GOP value fiscal issues enough to reduce the negative influence of social values that the party platform has on a large percentage of voters that make or break an election for a candidate? Or does the GOP maintain their positions on social values, knowing they are eliminating a large percentage of voters before the election has already begun.
Eliminate hispanics, blacks, young people that either vote for a democrat or don't vote and the under 40 women in the country and what do you have left?
November 16, 2012 1:52 pm
We will differ on this for sure. I don't see abortion as a "social issue" but a moral one. Life and death are pretty definitive issues and I think humans should take a stand on something like aborting a baby because the baby is an inconvenience. If young women can't understand that, then SOMEONE has to illustrate the issue for them. Or, should we just roll on the issue because it will cost us votes.
I know where I stand.
November 16, 2012 2:00 pm
Here again there is a position taken that not everyone accepts. When does life begin? We could argue that for years and not come to agreement . I believe it starts at conception. Others do not. Yes that is a moral value, not a social value, but again no one will be able to change a personal belief overnight.
But you have provided an alternative that could be acceptible to many. Education. Where a large percentage of individuals do not take a stand on religion and therefore do not base moral values on religion, education at a young age could lead to reducing the number of people in the coming years that find abortion acceptible. But that is a personal decision, not one that has been forced upon a group by law. They have taken information from both sides and formed an opinion that directs their voting choices.
November 16, 2012 3:21 pm
Are you suggesting that we should allow individuals to legally abort a baby that is about to be born? Where and when do we as a society declare that to be murder?
November 16, 2012 5:39 pm
I did not suggest that at all. But has that not already happened in some cases with partial birth abortions. Some far out of mainstream individuals want that to be legal. In those cases the baby is a viable person and should be protected.
But I don't want to get into a debate over abortion as that debate has been going on for more than 3 decades and it will probably continue well into the future. I will just say I do not approve of abortion as a personal choice for my family, but aslso understand their are people with much different moral values than mne that do approve.
What I offered as a reason for young women voting for Obama was their moral values are much different than those in the GOP. They believe it is a womans right to choose, it is the right of gay and lesbians to marry and they believe that when a choice has to be made between fiscal and social issues, they will choose social issues as the young are not yet that worried about the future monitary issues they will face or the country will face.
Now instead of debating if abortion is the killing of a life at anytime during pregnancy, offer a reason why my thoughts on women voting for Obama is wrong. That is what I offered at the beginning and would like to hear others positions on womens voting patterns other than the democrats and GOP talking points.
November 16, 2012 12:56 pm
Just some observations.
Republicans have a real problem with minorities.
At the same time those republican minority politicians are not "uncle toms"
Whether you agree with Rubio or Jindal, or …. on many issues. But do you doubt they beleive what they say ?
Why are we supposed to beleive that "The not-so-grand Wazzoo" has a special ability to perceive what "latinos" want ?
In US history only two minority groups have had difficulty assimilating – Blacks and Asians. Latinos may prove the answer to the former group as Latinos assimilate with both whites and blacks.
The US is unlikely to shift demographically, for the same reasons it has not really shifted with every other wave of immigrants – Are the Irish, the Swedes, the Italians, distinct "non -white" democratic voting blocks in this country ? In 40 years the demographics of this country will be much as it is today – except that lots of "white" middle class people will celebrate their Hispanic heritage – just as I celebrate my Irish ancestors.
With a few exceptions the reddest states in the country have some of the largest Hispanic populations.
Elections determine the whim of the voters at the moment.
They do not decide truth.
Had Romney been elected, it would not have made the right "right" or the left wrong.
All it would have meant is that a small majority of us was prepared to head in a different direction.
This election does have consequences with regard to various pundits – particularly losing ones that strongly backed Romney.
i would also note that much of the policy choice you criticise the GOP for are popular and often driven by complex swing state issues.
Obama appears to have successfully managed to mitigate his anti-Israel stance. How he pulled off Florida god alone knows. But in Flordia that matters alot, and florida is a critical swing state – but it is not a microcosm of the rest of the country – pro-immigrant stances do not sit well in Ohio or Virginia – and they are swing states. Republicans must win in North Carolina.
Both parties have limited political leaway. Absent the financial panic in 2008 does anyone think that Obama would have been elected ?
November 16, 2012 1:21 pm
It is hard to believe that voter fraud didn't make a difference. I doubt it cost Mitt the election but it didn't help.
November 16, 2012 11:51 am
In fact, Bastiat, I am in sympathy with your ideas on immigration. The nearly open border we have is an idiotic idea, it is out of control. I don't think it is nuts to believe that. Some kind of immigration reform ideally would be based on that reality, how can we help Mexico to have an economy that keeps its citizens home that is the question. As well the US population grows now strictly due to immigration, our existing population reproduces at a neutral rate. From the perspective of a "global warming alarmist" turning tens of millions of mexicans into US citizens with our energy habits is a disaster. See, there is a liberal side to the question, even if most liberals have not discovered it as yet.
As to racism, we have tangled on that a few times, I do not believe I have ever stated that there are not non racist GOP members, but the culture of the GOP party that attracts the people who are the epitomy of 21st-century code-word-thinly-disguised-caucasion-vs.-those-other-ethnic-groups-culture-war mentality is not going to win presidential elections going forward. Purge that part of the GOP or perish along with any responsible ideas on debt the GOP has.
November 16, 2012 11:55 am
As does the Dems outright pandering to anyone who might feel they have a grievance. It works both ways and if you don't think there are any black and Latino racists, you are deluding yourself.
November 16, 2012 1:20 pm
So now you are arguing for outsourcing jobs to Mexico – do you think that is going to fly well politically ?
All Hispanic immigrants crossing our southern border are not from Mexico.
Mexico has many problems, but over the long run it is likely to solve them.
Regardless, Mexico's problems are its own. We can not "help" Mexico.
Look how well our help has worked and been received around the world.
Foreign Aide has proven to be extremely destructive to the countries receiving it – whether Nigeria, or Egypt.
The best we can do for Mexico is offer a free market for their products, and sell them whatever we have that they want – a task which has no role for government.
You throw arround word like "help" – we must help. As if they are magic. As if noting that there is a problem means our government CAN and MUST do something about it.
You fail to grasp that in the overwhelming majority of instances where you see our help as necescary, even you can not elucidate what we should do and how or even whether it would work.
It is not enough to recognize that there is a problem.
Before rushing to solve a problem we need solutions that are possible and will work.
Absent that we are wasting money and inflicting harm on those we are trying to help.
As to your "racism" fixation, the very study that purportedly proved that the Tea party was Racist – actually proved that if there was any differences in racism by political affiliation, that the left as a whole was more likely to a benign form of racisim,
The "code word" argument is ludicrous. For "code words" to be effecitive and meaningful, it is necescary for the "in group" to recognize them, and the "out group" to be unable to.
When the left or the media claims the GOP is speaking racial code words – the one thing you can be certain of is that they are not. If the media and the left understand the code – it is not code.
What is really true is that the left is actively and successfully engaged in censoring the speech of the right. The left and the media want to find what they believe is GOP code for racism, and absent finding it they want to make it impossible for Republican politicians to speak without having to agonize over every word they use.
The left has been incredibly effective in mangling language.
Your own diatribes demonstrate it – you and rick claim to be moderate – but you speak in the language of the left. You say so many things without questioning them.
You want to help Mexico – I want to "help" Mexico too, but that is not really what you want. You want the US government to give money to Mexico. Regardless, of precisely what you mean you have skipped past an individual view and obligation and created a societal one and imposed it on others that may not share it
Much of what Pres. Obama says I agree with. But nearly nothing that he actually means – because the left has made all the words mean something different.
It is a tactic right out of Alynski.
November 16, 2012 12:12 pm
The idea that moderates have no principles is another absurd statement. Since we are a large and not a dogmatic group, we have diverse principles. Are you telling me I have no principles? I beg to differ. Our principle simply do not overlap very much in the area of government and politics. Principle and dogma are not synonyms.
However, I encourage conservatives to continue to believe that we moderates have no principles, if one must have an adversary let them be daft, its a gift.
November 16, 2012 12:28 pm
Being gutless is not a virtue but if you want to make it one, have at it.
November 16, 2012 2:04 pm
Are you equating your principles with that of all moderates ?
I and a few others here think Libertarian is a form of real moderate – are your principles and ours the same ? Are we not allowed to claim we are moderate ?
If moderates are diverse – then clearly they include people with different principles than yours. Is there some litmus test for "moderate" ?
Principle and Dogma are not synonyms – I can not find much principle in anything you say, but I can find alot of dogma.
Someone who is principled grasps that something is wrong even when done for good reasons.
I have constantly tried to get some expression of principles from you or Rick – the best I have gotten is this idiocy of "fairness" – even the Nazi's used that, and your adoption of the fallacy of moderation as practically a golden rule.
For the most part you seem to be like Justice Potter Stewart – I can not define "moderate" but I know it when I see it.
You rant about partisanship – but you are the most partisan person here. Your party in not the GOP or the DNC, but the I am right don't confuse me with the facts party.
I would have never guessed that Priscilla was a radical conservative – but for your instruction.
Principles are things we stick to – even when they are not in our best interests, even when they are costly. Our efforts to conform to them – beceause we beleive in them
November 16, 2012 12:21 pm
I'm feeding them again and right after my lecture. I have a serious lack of self-control problem! Arrrrrrrggggghh! Compulsion is an actual swelling of the brain, Cold water and time are needed. Must not scratch the itch, must not….
November 16, 2012 12:29 pm
Go read an economics text book. That will put you to sleep.
November 16, 2012 12:58 pm
II don't care if you are nice to me Priscilla, I don't know you, you are words on a screen that originate from a conservative partisan I share little world view with. I make no agreement to politely reciprocate and thus be buried here under the weight of entirely un-moderate political nonsense. Since you all have decided to follow the election with incessant partisan conservative babble, and since nearly all actual moderates here, not just myself, but AMAC and Rick, have all but begged you to see something you refuse to see, that this is a site for moderates that you are harming via your echo chamber, then yes, time to rub noses rather than allow you to have your delusional romp here unchecked. Brought it on yourselves, you did. Stop and think, you didn't. (When 150 years you reach, look this good you'll not. )
Meanwhile Pat Riot has disappeared and the echo chamber rambles on and on…
Actually, my moderate heart beats with pride when I consider that we moderates beat the shit out of your beloved ultra-conservative GOP and that we will again, with regularity.
You (by which I mean the entire larger conservative group you represent) could only hurt me, politically speaking, in the future by learning some lessons that you will refuse to learn.
November 16, 2012 1:24 pm
You sir, are a coward and a bully. And, not that smart. I am trying to decide what is the worst of these faults. I will leave that up to you. After all, 3 is not a very large number. PS- I know Priscilla personally and she could kick the shit out of you all day long (mentally or physically).
November 16, 2012 2:43 pm
Moderates won in this election ?
Hardly. Net republican losses were negligible. Several new libertarian or Tea Party leaning republicans are in the house and Senate.
The few Democratic gains are hardly moderate.
The american people essentially voted for the status quo – they voted for continued partisan bickering. They voted for divided government.
The GOP has some soul searching to do – an election that should have mirrored 2010, turned into a draw. That is a reflection of serious problems with the GOP – when you can not defeat a weak enemy clearly you have some strategy and tactics problems.
But this is likely to proved to be a serious defeat for moderates – even your flavor moderate.
Obama won by demoralizing voters, and getting slightly more of his base out than the GOP managed. Moderates sat this election out – otherwise Obama would have lost.
Even democrats did not vote in the same numbers they did in 2008.
This election portends disaster for Democrats in 2014. Obama will not be running, and the democratic core is notoriously bad at voting in off year elections, while independents and republicans are likely to vote heavily.
Further, as i have said before the message the GOP is likely to take from this election is one that has been running through the GOP for decades – Republican moderates do not win elections. Romney was about the most moderate Republican candidate you are likely to ever see. The fact you can not grasp that is just proof of how far left you lean.
Regardless, the future republican candidates are likely to be
Even Christie is to the right of the real Mitt Romney.
The Tea Party considers Romney's loss empowering – he dissed them, and they did not work for him, and in many instances did not vote for him. And the GOP will notice that.
Republicans are incredibly dependent on volunteers to run their elections. Democrats typically pay their GOTV staff. This is a tremendous advantage for the GOP – BUT you have to win the hearts and minds of volunteers.
November 16, 2012 3:24 pm
I agree. I don't think you can call Patty Murray or Pocahontas Warren moderate.
November 16, 2012 1:41 pm
And you do not know me personally, so… But I thank you for the sir and for omitting some of your trademark pleasantries. When you have failed to find any great hole in my armor, well you can always call me a dimwit or not that smart. Like the bumper sticker says, I may be slow but I'm ahead of you!
November 16, 2012 3:29 pm
Another govt entity out of money: This never ends, does it:
November 16, 2012 3:33 pm
Why is libertarian not moderate ?
Ian claims moderate is a big tent capable of tolerating diversity of opinion.
With only a few exceptions we share the ideals with liberals – but we do not believe you can accomplish good ends through bad means.
We share the anti-government individual liberty values of George McGovern Liberals.
We share with the right the belief that government powerful enough to give us everything we want is powerful enough to take it way, as well as demanding fiscal responsibility from government. But just as the Left is willing to sacrifice means for ends, the right is fickle about its faith in small government and fiscal responsibility.
Libertarianism is also a big tent with wide variation among self proclaimed libertarians, but for the most part – unlike the right or left, libertarian values are logically consistent.
What part of "no one has the right to initiate force against another" is at odds with whatever "moderate" means ?
If you have no real idea what moderate means – how do you exclude conservatives and liberals much less libertarains. ?
November 17, 2012 3:20 pm
But compromise is not the solution – nor has either side proposed anything close to what actually needs done.
just to avert the short run crisis we need to,
Allow ALL spending cuts to go forward, AND increase them by another 2.4T/decade in return for increasing the debt ceiling.
Allow all the tax cuts except the upper margin cuts and inheritance tax changes to expire.
And all that does is kicks the problem further down the road. It does nto address the fundimental insolvency of SS and Medicare.
Neither party is proposing anything close to this.
The answer is not in the right or the left, nor in the middle, it is doing what is necessary – even though it is difficult.
We are already at grave risk of a long term weak economy. Allowing the debt to rise faster than the economy grows will only make that worse.
It will cost jobs and it will lower our standard of living and the effects will be greatest on those with the least.
I keep getting told libertarians have no empathy – but it is those that think we can continue as we are who are ruining the lives of countless numbers of those living below the median.
"Until this moment, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. …. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
November 17, 2012 4:12 pm
Pew Post election analysis
60% of republican's think Romney was not conservative enough
slightly less than 1/3 of voters think the results of the national election were accruate.
I do not believe that voter fraud by either party significantly effected the results of this election. – though most voters apparently beleive otherwise.
But I do believe there was real fraud.
Something like 60 precints in the philadelphia area records zero, zip, nada votes for Romney. The statistical probability against that is astronomical, There were a large number of other precincts across the country reporting similar results. I have not yet heard of a single precinct reporting no votes for Obama.
There are already stories of several municipalities where the number of voted exceeded the number of registered voters.
We have a US attorney General's office that does not believe voter fraud or intimidation exists when it kicks them in the nuts.
November 17, 2012 4:56 pm
What is wrong with healthcare and actually successful efforts to fix it.
November 17, 2012 5:28 pm
asmith, just a couple followup comments to the healthcare article.
1. That surgery center does not accept Medicare or Medicaid, so they are not stuck with " cost " that are not covered by the payments. No cost shifting to paying patients.
2. Even if it did accept those payors, OK does not have certificate of need laws that curtails competition. And competition in any market will reduce cost. Just look at eye procedures and how that cost has come down with more docs performing different procedures.
3. The surgery center is not billing the government or insurance companies, so they can have one flat rate per procedure. Government regulations require detail billing for supplies, procedures and test so revenues and expenses can be included in a year end Medicare Cost report required by CMS. Some hospitals have tried (including mine) to find a way to bill flat rate charges and the government and insurance companies always said NO.
4. Doctors who participate in Medicare have been prohibited by law for many years from "self referrals", meaning they can not refer patients to facilities they have an interest in. That did not include surgery centers, but they may be included now with Obamacare.
5. And the last issue is the cost structure of the hospital compared to the surgery center. A surgery center usually runs from 6 or so in the morning until sometime into the everning. That allows patients to recover and go home. And that may only be 5-6 days a week. The hospital is staffed 24-7, 365 days a year. The ER has to be staffed for contingency patients, even though they may not see a patient at all at night. Same with Lad, Radiology, etc.
I am not defending all of the rediculous charges that are quoted in this articel. There is no law that says an item that cost $1.50 has to be charged for to begin with. And there is no excuse for having 18 administrative employees making $400.000+ per year. Not even if this is a 1000+ bed facility. That is total incompetence on the part of the board and CEO/CFO for allowing this to happen.
Sorry for the long message, but thought the info would be interesting to some.
November 17, 2012 6:51 pm
1). I thought that Medicare and Medicaid purportedly paid their own way – atleast that is what progressives constantly tell me. In fact they tell me they are so much better we should just eliminate insurance and do medicare for all.
Regardless, there are many medical procedures that I could pay out of pocket at the Surgical center, that I could not afford without going bankrupt in our traditional system.
2). Absolutely. Another example of the chrony capitolism of government regulation. Yet, I can hear the chorus already – I must be a racist or gay basher because I oppose government regulation whihc rarely has net positive results.
3). Sure – one size does not fit all. The Surgical Center may not be the best solution to every problem. There is no such thing as a one size fits all solution, which is why PPACA will fail, and why the surgical center will succeed atleast until government kills is.
Regardless, again in many instances for the rates they are charging I could buy a catastrophic police for $3000/year for my family and still afford – 2-5 significant procedures a year for what 80% dedudictable insurance costs.
I ran billing for a 55 person professional practice for 22 years.
Today I do entirely fixed fee work. Want a Linux devices driver for your wigamhozit $5000.00 payment when complete – unhappy, don't pay.
I keep no time records, each client gets one bill. I have very simple records, and I spend my time doing the work I love – writing software rather than billing and tracking time and job costing.
Want to hire me by the hour ? Sure but you will have to pay an exhorbitant rate, because I hate tracking time, and job costing.
4). Another excellent idea. Look at those areas of medicine where prices have dropped radically – virtually all are uninsured, and self-referal systems, eye-doctors running their own lasik practice or things like that.
5). All the other things necessary in a hospital do not permit it to charge $35.00 for cheeseburgers in the hospital cafeteria.
I am neither defending or attacking integris. if they can get $360 for a $1.50 item I am fine with that. What I am not fine with is laws and regulations that prevent competitors from figuring out how to deliver the same thing for $100 or $3 or whatever they think is reasonable.
The real point of this is that free markets – where you can actually get them work.
November 17, 2012 8:49 pm
Your first comment about medicare/caid. They do not pay there own way. They pay on a flat rate by diagnosis related group. Appendectomy, X,XXX.OO. cardiac Surgery XX,XXX.OO. That is even with the requirement that the bills be detailed to the items used. And those flat rate payments are adjusted somewhat for differences in labor cost in the different MSA's, but when the patients stay is run through an elaborate cost accounting system, in most cases they are paying 50-60% of actual cost. Medicaid is paying 25-35% of actual cost. So when you go into the hospital, you pay for you cost, plus usually 5% "profit" plus some of the cost that medicare/ciad do not pay. So a $10,000 procedure cost will have about $500 added for profit and another couple thousand added to pay for your neighbor's grandmas hip replacement.
In not-for-profit hospitals, it is excess revenues over expenses and that funds new equipment, etc.
November 17, 2012 11:42 pm
Ron P'
"the pay their own way" was sarcasm. We are told Medicare/Medicaid pay there own way, that PPACA will save a Trillion,
But like all systems of price controls they fail. Worse they destroy everything around them.
Integris may not be able to compete with the surgical center – because if the surcical center does not take medicare and integris does Integris can not attempt to compete without endangering its medicare re-imbursement.
November 17, 2012 5:01 pm
On the excellent Job FEMA has done Post Sandy
November 17, 2012 5:42 pm
Is free speech dead ?
November 17, 2012 5:47 pm
"Maybe peace would have broken out with a different kind of White House, one less committed to waging a perpetual campaign–a White House that would see a 51-48 victory as a call to humility and compromise rather than an irrefutable mandate."
Barack Obama 2004 The Audacity of Hope regarding the Bush victory.
November 17, 2012 6:58 pm
CBO says that the impact of the ARA stimulus is net negative.
Sen Sessions: And in the next 10 years, since you're carrying that debt and paying interest on it and the stimulus value is long since gone, it would be a continual negative of some effect?
CBO Director Elmendorf: Yes, it would represent a drag on the level of GDP beyond that, if no other actions were taken.
November 17, 2012 7:06 pm
apparently adding immigrants to US classrooms on the net improves the education of natives, their graduation rates and their future job prospects.
November 17, 2012 8:05 pm
A partial explanation for why opposition to outsourcing is idiocy.
November 17, 2012 8:45 pm
Have we switched to a center-libertarian nation ?
November 18, 2012 12:06 pm
express yourself to the whitehouse
November 18, 2012 5:08 pm
You know Rich, you sort of had something there until the word Libtards. Smug liberals are part of one's daily diet in VT. The ones who begin letters to the editor with the words "Let me enlighten you…" But sensible objective, and therefore valuable, criticism comes from sensible objective people, not partisan ideological warriors.
There is an hours in the day problem here, I just don't have time to consider the evidence, always very partial, that govt programs as an entire group don't work, when I can see for myself that is false. Its not the universe I live in. You and Dave may as well ask me why I don't investigate the idea that no American actually walked on the moon. I've no time for such nonsense.
Can I see that Welfare, pre-reform, was a program for perpetuating helplessness across generations and encouraging helpless people to have ten children who then each had ten children while they were supposedly in a life crisis such that only govt assistance could keep them alive? Huzzah for welfare reform, but it was the low hanging fruit of your anti-govt program philosophy. I don't need food stamps and never have, but I'm glad that the food stamp program exists. If I needed a selfish reason for that, then not having to fear that starving people might invade my home in a robbery is good enough, but I have other better reasons as well.
And to be honest, does my memory fail me or was it not you who once took great pleasure here on TNM in mocking and insulting a homeless man, I think it was on Christmas or his birthday or some such day? Very nice and compassionate, that.
November 18, 2012 8:33 pm
TNSGW..During the great depression of the 30's, what were the major programs that FDR used to help individuals in a time of need? Wasn't the CCC, WPA and other job related government programs the most effective during the depression?
Today, what government programs have done what these programs were able to do during the depression?
It is not that all government programs are bad, its just that most bad programs today are run by the government.
November 20, 2012 8:23 pm
There were no actually effective Depression era programs, and there are no modern programs that work either.
Even if you were to beleive that the CCC and WPA were effective – which they were not, the "poor" today would be unlikely to aggree to programs that paid crappy transported them thousands of miles from their families in return for the opportunity for crappy low paying back breaking jobs with abysmal pay.
November 21, 2012 12:24 am
I can't argue the effectiveness of these programs since I am not a student of that era. I do know that over 500,000 individuals were employed and placed in camps by the CCC throughout the country where much of the infrastructure of the current national park system was built . The WPA also replaced some direct government aid with a program where individuals worked on government projects and earned money during the depression. Those projects can be foound on the internet.
But the key difference in these programs to programs today is the word "work". FDR expected those that could work and wanted to work to work. What these individuals experienced was an honest days work for a honest dollar earned. If they had kids, the kids most likely saw dad off each morning and met him at the door when he returned that night. Today, many kids do not see either parent leave the house and grow up thinking "money grows on trees".
If the programs then did what they were expected to do, that can be debated later. But even if you do not find FDR's leadership effective, it did expect people to work, unlike the leadership today that wants to make people dependant on government.
November 20, 2012 8:12 pm
All "entitlements" create dependence. Food stamps is no special exception.
But if you are so all fired determined to do something – give people cash. It is the easiest to administer, and leaves those you are helping the greatest control of their own lives – the least dependent. You eliminate a significant portion of "government welfare" because you no longer need myriads of administrators. You eliminate the indirect welfare to those institutions that take food stamps, you eliminate corruption. And you radically reduce your costs. Further you clarify to people exactly what is being done.
Rather that providing direct benefits to as much as 50% of the population averaging 18K/year/person in myriads of different forms, You provide a fixed benefit that everyone knows exactly what is, and you provide it based on clear criteria that everyone understands. Equally important we can back down from a welfare state where more than half of us are on some form of the dole.
Do you grasp that that is unsustainable ?
November 20, 2012 8:19 pm
Living in cheap hotels might not be an ideal way to live – but it is not "homeless".
Next thing you know we are going to have to aid people who live in mansions – because that is some form of homeless.
What most of us think of as homeless – is people without a home – living on the streets.
That is what most of us assume in public discourse about the problem of the "homeless".
We are not think of people with crappy homes, or who rent, or who have crappy apartments.
November 18, 2012 6:20 pm
Give Peace a Chance.
November 18, 2012 6:25 pm
That means you.
in truth this is an identity tied to a new e-mail address I created just so that i can receive the comments in a dedicated e-mail and read the ones from actual moderates there without having to hunt for them in the middle of Dave's fillibuster of TNM.
I can suggest that as a solution to anyone with the same issues.
November 18, 2012 7:06 pm
You've got the quote a bit wrong, there were about 15 more evers in most versions.
Also from Churchill:
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm."
"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
In the morning I will be sober but you will still be ugly.
I love my cigar but I sometimes take it out of my mouth (to a man with 15 children who explained that he loved his wife.)
Not everything Churchill said works 100% of the time.
I know a woman, almost 60, out of work for 3 years, she worked and made a good living doing graphic arts for newspapers for 35 years but the print newspaper industry has shrunk to a fraction of its former self and she lost her job. No more of that work is available, especially to older workers. She feels useless and just wants to die, No retraining programs exist for her, courtesy of those who are sure Keynes has long ago been proven wrong. Can't even get a minimum wage job, too old. Must be a slacker. A well to do sister keeps her mortgage paid or she would be on the street. She never was good with money, some people aren't. Go ahead judge her, its the conservative way.
November 20, 2012 8:40 pm
I am almost 60 – or close enough. I am very highly skilled and currently well paid in a profession that is not what my degree is in and not what I spent a quarter of a century doing.
At various points in the past decade:
I wrote technical magazine articles for about $600/ea. to get by.
I took a crappy job installing computers in call centers for barely more than minimum wage.
If necescary I would have worked at McDonald's
No one provided me any job retraining. In 2011, My AGI would have qualified me for food stamps. I was motivated by that mortgage I owe, and the family I promised to take care of.
At the moment I have a job that pays well – but I would much prefer to be back working for myself. But "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you get what you need".
I have little sympathy for your friend. I do not believe that she is unable to do any other job than some job that no longer exists.
I have been to walmart (and McDonald's, and my local grocery store) – there is no such thing as too old for a minimum wage job, and in fact there are an enormous number of seniors taking jobs from teens, because the seniors have better attitude, and more basic jobs skills and are just worth more.
I am left to the conclusion that you friend does not want a job.
November 20, 2012 11:33 am
Pat, I directed her to a program that is supposed to help older workers change careers. That did not help, they had really the same lists of jobs the Dept of Labor had, the program was mainly a benefit to the two or three people who worked in its office.
One hears rumors of retraining programs, but they seem to be hard to find this time around.
She had a job skill that was needed for 35 years, now its not and she is pushing sixty with some rough edges. 60 year old people often do not re invent themselves well. Older workers can be attractive with the right set of skills. Without that… Suddenly one cannot find even a minimum wage job, even once they accept that idea, which is also hard at 60 having made good money as a skilled worker for 35 years. Without her family she could wind up on the street.
I remember the millions of homeless under Reagan, I'll be fair and admit that the economy collapsed under Carter and recovered under Reagan, but… Was that really necessary?
Yeah I know, for nearly all of human history it was adapt or die, but today many of us are not keen on watching people who were productive all their lives but who's niche vanished wander around with shopping carts in the cold. Bleeding hearts are the social norm now, there are advantages to not having one, but on the whole I'd rather have one.
November 21, 2012 1:03 am
I am sorry Ian but I do not believe this.
Unless you friend is personally completely unable to adapt to the slightest variation on her prior job, there is work out there even now.
There are between 50% more and more than three times as many homeless today as the peak during the Reagan administration depending on whose numbers you use. And it was not millions is was either 200,000 or 500,000 depending on which government estimate you used. So if Reagan was heartless what is Obama ? Again you see the world through tinted lenses – conservative evil, liberal good. God forbid facts should get in the way
The economy did not collapse under Carter, "stagflation" started with Johnson and gradually grew as successive presidents continued to apply a Keynesian mistake,, believing they could trade inflation for employment. Volker deliberately induced a recession to bring inflation under-control starting during the carter administration.
Productivity is not about niche's if you are so unadaptable that you can not even adjust slightly, you are not going to end up homeless – unless you chose to. That is unless that tremendous social safety net you take such great pride in and costs every man woman and child in this country 6.500/year has completely vaporized.
I could care whether your heart bleeds or not – but if the systems already in-place are insufficient to help your friend then why do you believe that stealing even more from all of us is going to help any more ?
If you had your share of that 6.500/year – would you use some of it to help your friend ? That would be what someone who cares does. But you don't have it, because it has been taken from you on false promises, and now you want to steal more from somebody else because you can't help.
What does it take before it gets through to you that it is the system you are advocating – not the fictional dog-eat-dog world you rant about that is causing all the harm you lament ?
Should disaster befall your friend, is it because the industry she was in was so heartless it up and failed ? Is it because other cruel businesses refuse to hire someone without the skills they need ? Or is it because that vaunted safety-net you prize is an impossible fiction ?
November 21, 2012 11:38 am
Bastiat, I have a hard time distinguishing your anti government views from Dave's, the ones you claim belong to a crazy. The fundamental principle seems to be identical, government does not work.
The far left hate capitalism and can point to a long list of its failures, Enron, the Exxon Valdez, numerous rounds of bank bailouts. Polaroid failed, they went out of business. So they are a failure. In fact not just a failure they prove that capitalism itself is a failure.
Of course this is shit. Business and capitalism have their failures, but they have successes that far outweigh them.
The far right hates government and can list all its failures. Depending on how loosely one chooses to define failure, anything is a failure. Life is a failure because in the end we are all dead. You and Dave can flood the site with examples of the so-called failures of government. I can if I wish (but don't have the time or wish) flood the site with examples of the failures of the free market and business.
The remarkable thing is that with a nearly exactly 50/50 mix of these two titanic "failures", private enterprise and government, I look around and see that I live an an amazingly successful country. Go figure.
November 21, 2012 4:03 pm
Why are you ranting at Bastiat's and my "anti-government" tilt on this.
This is YOUR example.
40-50% of what we produce is being devoured by government – yet government has no answer for your friend.
I did not make it so, nor did Bastiat. nor did the ultra conservative right.
The nastiest complaint you can direct at us regarding this is that we don't want to see government consuming 50-60% of GDP and STILL not be able to help your friend.
What is difficult to believe is YOUR faith in government after this.
You rant about "adapt or die" but at-least that offers the opportunity to adapt – so far what is this broad expensive safety-net offering your friend – as best as I can tell little or nothing. I can make lots of suggestions – even Pat has – and few if any involve government.
Open your eyes – government has failed your friend.
All my rants did not cause that – but they are confirmed by it.
Why do you insist on seeing good in government as it screws your friend ?
How is that my or Bastiat's fault ?
November 21, 2012 4:16 pm
Great you see our success.
But Why is 50/50 the perfect mix ?
Here we are listening to your tale of woe regarding your friend and the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from that is that the safety-net has failed her.
That World Bank study i keep refering to – was a compendium of myriads of other studies over many nations over 40 years. The results – 50/50 is pretty far from the right mix.
60/40 is better still, 70/30 better yet, and 80/20 the best of anything we have seen in the past 40 years. Data from the 19th century suggests that 90/10 and even 95/5 work better yet.
With GDP of 16T that is an additional 24K/year for every man/woman/child in the US.
That sounds like one hell of a safety-net to me.
Of all the wonderful things you see in this country – which are the result of government ?
Even if we presume that those great public works would not have happened without government. Did government dig the earth, mix the concrete, …. every single thing government has accomplished has been done by paying private entities to actually accomplish the task..
So what is it that government has done that is worth 7.2T/year – or nearly half of everything we produce ?
What is the evidence that 50/50 is even close to the right mix ?
You rant about ideological extremism – but my argument is about evidence.
November 21, 2012 2:40 pm
I've lived and worked in a country with the government you describe, it was Russia, circa 2007.
The state was heavily into police and security, military, and transportation (since then they have only gotten much worse). Not many funds remained for anything else.
Not a libertarian paradise, we can agree, the right to vote was only in sham elections and the right to express a political opinion was only slightly better than that in China, But Russia spends its government efforts in exactly the areas you describe, with predictable results.
You will likely tell me that its a rotten example as their police and military forces are aimed at over zealous repression as much as anything legit, well, I will tell you that when a state has shrunk to little more than security functions, it will put all the worst absolute power corrupts tendencies into going overboard on security. You do not want to live in a place where the government has shrunk to little more than security functions, they will concentrate all the dark energies you attribute to government to just that area. A nightmare.
The picture of a happy well balanced society where government provides only reasonable security functions, and private enterprise behaves itself beautifully without regulation and people obtain all that they require from a private enterprise and the laws of supply and demand is a utopian dream.
I'm really not seeing the difference between your vision and Dave's
November 21, 2012 4:47 pm
Who here has offered either the deterous of the failed statism that was the USSR or that of the PRC slowly trying to em,brace state-capitolism as some form of libertopia ?
It really sucks to live in a failed statist state – we agree.
Conversely many parts of the former USSR have successfully transitioned from statism to greater freedom. They have started deep in the hole. They have a long way to go, they are far from perfect, but they are succeeding and growing far more rapidly than we are..
Because of how far behind they are they have decades before they will catch us.
But they are coming.
I do not think anyone has suggested that businesses are inherently good and need no check on their errors. The question is how that is accomplished.
Absent prior-restraint regulation, the first check on business is the market. Businesses that harm their customers do not last long. The second check is the requirement that those who do harm repair that harm. The most extreme libertarian I am aware of accepts that each of us are responsible for the harm we cause.
When you claim we wish to see businesses run about willy nilly as they please – you misrepresent our views.
The debate is about prior restraint vs. consequences. It is about allowing people the freedom to find solutions in anyway they can so long as they do not harm others. in doing so. Regulation is a presumption that a one size fits all rule that most people are not even aware of is capable of preventing harm.
November 21, 2012 4:33 pm
You think that an unborn-child is more important than a gall bladders – yet you eviscerate those who feel the same is bigots and racists, and anti-women.
Aside from his idiotic view that raped women can prevent pregnancy – you are expressing the same value that lost Akin's his election.
If you want a balanced budget – then quit pissing all over the only people actually trying to get their. Few if any democrats support that. The president sure doesn't.
As to immigration, at 1/4 our current population we absorbed twice the current number of immigrants for several decades – during that time, the nation prospered more than it does now, and standards of living even for the least improved at more than twice the current rate.
Do you beleive in school choice because the current public schools are so great ?
Because we have doubled, trippled, quadrupled education spending, teachers salaries, … since you and I were in school for a net loss in quality of education.
The near blanket disbelief in government comes from near universal government failure.
But fine you disagree. What portion of the time do you beleive that government succeeds.
Remember government spends nearly half what we produce – in your life or those arround you do you see half the value coming from government ?
We do not have to agree that all government is bad.
But that is not really what you argue. Essentially you grumblingly argue that government fails alot, but that we still need every more.
When you start getting really serious about actually separating the baby from the bath water maybe some of us "extremists" might take an interest in what you have to say.
What is most disturbing is that you consider even entertaining the possibility that we need LESS government in any form, to be anti-moderate extremism.
I will be cease believing what I believe as facts make it clear that it does not work – thus far that has not happened. You continue to beleive what you beleive regardless of facts.
Is that what it means to be moderate ?
November 21, 2012 4:57 pm
"Every society in which government has been reduced to security and transportation and the rest of the society is left to run itself via free enterprise and supply and demand will come to the same ugly conclusion and rapidly."
I am not offering Hong Kong and Singapore as "Libertopia" but they certainly seem to run at odds to your claims. They have the least government of any developed nations in the world, the least regulation, the greatest economic freedom, and the greatest long term growth in median standard of living.
Further, much of Eastern Europe has drug itself up from utter destruction with a fraction of the government typical in the west – they have a long way to go but their growth has averaged double ours.
The entire point of that World Bank survey was that those states with less government
have done better than those states with more.
You are arguing against facts and trying to use Russia and China which while freer than they were 3 decades ago ares still not even close to free nations. And even there more freedom has resulted in more prosperity.
November 21, 2012 5:08 pm
How deleterious is corruption to economic development ?
In 41 different cross country studies of corruption and development 2/3 of the studies did not even find a negative correlation.
conversely numerous studies have show that "the rule of law" – the reliable enforcement of individual rights – particularly property rights is inseparable from economic success.
November 21, 2012 5:18 pm
We are not arguing about utopia.
statism in most any flavor – communist/fascist/totalitarian, …. fails. the evidence of that appears compelling. Though there are ideological problems specific to communism, the root of the failure is not ideological. It is that total state control just does not work regardless of ideology.
I doubt even the most extreme libertarian here is arguing anarcho-capitolism which is the real opposite to statism.
Those of us who self identify as libertarian all appear to be some form of "minarchists"
Minarchism rests on the presumption that some government is necessary – that both extremes – anarchy, and statism fail. That a working society must lie somewhere in the middle. All minarchists are not the same but most see that sweet spot as closer to anarchy than to totalitarianism. Aside from grasping that the optimum is not in the center this sounds much like your description of moderate – except one thing, our emphasis of less government is supported by real world facts as well as ideology, it is not rooted solely in faith in principles we can not even express.
November 21, 2012 5:45 pm
Sandy update.
I went to the barrier islands yesterday to deal with the damage to my fathers house on the bay. Total damage to a house right on the water front – $300.00 – 3 of 4 heavy metal rings that hold the dock inplace had been damaged.
While touring the rest of the island I found:
nearly everything working.
Almost all the roads and houses and lawns and driveways and … had been cleared of sand and debris.
With few exceptions there was no damage of consequence anywhere on the island to those houses that did not have basements – few homes on the barrier islands do.
Businesses were up and running – atleast those that are normally up and running during the off season.
In those houses with basements debris was being cleared out and pitched.
There were also other interesting consequences.
Prior to sandy the bulkheads of both homes adjacent to my fathers had been damaged due to years of neglect. Repair of bulkheads can be very expensive.
Interesting both neighbors were in the process of installing brand new and very expensive bulkheads – my guess is courtesy of FEMA funds. So all you TNMers should celebrate your tax dollars are being used to pay my fathers neighbors to do something they needed to do years ago.
There was plenty of evidence of similar enterprise. My fathers home on the water with a first floor level at most one foot above the high water mark had no damage beyond the dock. The decks had been inundated and were underwater, but were otherwise undamaged. Nothing got into the house. Yet all arround houses that were up to several feet further above the high water mark had tossed mattresses and couches and TVs and were busily remodelling their first floor.
I have no doubt that many homes had real damage, but an awful lot of the garbage in the streets was from homes in the high center of the island without basements, and dubious probability that they had any damage at all – particularly when my father's home right on the water got through this unscathed.
My father was truly lucky. A slightly higher water level, larger waves, could easily have resulted in the destruction of everything on the first floor of his bay home. Even as it was, I do not understand how the outside decks survived without even having their railings ripped off, greater wave action would have eventually undermined his foundations and destroyed the entire home. But none of this happened. The real destruction beyond loss of power was the result of water in the basement of those few homes on the island with basements, and lots of sand and debris across the island.
A small number of homes actually on the causeways or on the water front but closer to the ocean than my fathers experienced more damage.
Regardless, this was no Katrina – and the New Jersey Barrier islands were fairly near the epicenter of landfall for the storm.
Nothing I saw suggested that the state had any better an idea how to handle this than ordinary citizens, further the most significant damage was already long cleared away two weeks after the storm passed.
November 21, 2012 5:57 pm
Our bleak future a perspective from the left.
My disagreements:
Obama is really a centrist only to the extent that he borrows from the worst of both the right and left approximately equally.
The economy does suck and will likely get worse – because of what Obama and House Republicans are likely to do, but the articles author has no idea why or where jobs come from.
Future wages are likely to remain low at the bottom – but again mostly for the opposite reasons the article suguests. Stimulus at best puts a very temporary floor under a bad situation, at the cost of protracting the harm.
PPACA is a mess and will fail. It does reward many of those the article claims – who would have expected differently, but Single payer would have been even worse.
Dodd-Frank is even worse than the article claims.
Big Money and Democrats – atleast one Pundit that grasps that the prime beneficiary of corporatism is the democratic party.
But CU was not the problem. ITs effects were almost entirely on independent voices. The party and its candidates are no more or less beholden to Wall Street of corporate american than they were before CU.
November 21, 2012 6:35 pm
What will happen if we go over the Fiscal Cliff – according to NBER.
From the summary
Spending-based adjustments have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all.
Tax-based adjustments have been associated with prolonged and deep recessions.
November 21, 2012 8:42 pm
What happens if the US shifts to nordic style "cuddly capitalism" ?
Everybody goes to hell.
November 22, 2012 11:59 am
Small Sampling of craigslist jobs from craigslist in my area
receptionist 15.50/hr
Numerous bookkeeping positions $15/hr and up
Entry level account rep – requires college degree – 30-40K/year
Shipping associate – clerical $10-$12/hr
High school and elementary school tutors – 15-40/hr.
Mortgage Default Inspector
Virtual Administrative assistant
Dog Sitting – minimum wage
Personal Care Attendant – no experience necessary
There is plenty of work available for anyone who wants to work.
There is more for those with a high school degree, and even more for those with a college degree, and/or experience.
November 22, 2012 1:18 pm
Here Pat, (or anyone not skeptical of the very idea of fairness)
Enjoy this its from a TED talk. Hilarious.
November 23, 2012 10:00 pm
So it is ok for Monkeys and dogs to make their own free choices – but if humans are involved we have to impose "fairness" externally ?
As best as I can tell the experiment proves that free mokeys that have everything they need prefer grapes.
November 24, 2012 1:08 am
Anthropolgists have discovered that a sense of entitlement is innate and confused it with a "fairness".
That is unless there is some natural law requiring anthropologists to trade grapes rather than cucumbers for rocks.
Whether you are a monkey or a man, nature entitles you to nothing, but you are free to trade whatever you produce with whoever you please for whatever you can get. You are free to be angry if you can not get the same deal as someone else – though it is rare in the real world that circumstances are perfectly interchangeable, you are free to throw a fit or go own strike, you are free to demand as much as you wish for whatever you produce, but you are not entitled to receive anything.
November 24, 2012 10:24 am
To be an economic free market purist means to ignore the reality that without regulation and government interference the free market becomes a race to the bottom with results that definitely do NOT enrich everyone. I'd say that ignoring that reality is pretty immoral.
Actually, its something colder and more sinister, its amoral, morality is simply not considered. Her is a reminder of what the market looks like when taken to the extreme. THis woman, she makes logical sense according to the rules of the market, but she cannot have her wish for 2$ wages for her workers.
The world's richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, drew international scorn recently after saying that people who are jealous of the wealthy should drink less and work harder.
And now she's back with some more helpful advice.
Speaking at the Sydney Mining Club, Rinehart said her country's mining industry couldn't compete with nations that are willing to pay workers less than $2 a day for their sweat and labor.
The implicit suggestion: Employers should be free to pay workers whatever they please.
This echoes Rinehart's earlier to-do list, in which she urged Aussie lawmakers to cut the minimum wage so that, well, she wouldn't have to spend so much money on things like workers' salaries and benefits.
"The evidence is inarguable that Australia is becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export-oriented business," Rinehart said at the Sydney Mining Club. "Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day. Such statistics make me worry for this country's future."
Yep, it's getting harder and harder to be a job creator.
Rinehart knows what it means to pull yourself up by the bootstraps. She inherited a fortune now estimated to be worth about $18 billion. That's a heavy burden to bear.
Yet, inexplicably, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard didn't take Rinehart's advice in the generous spirit with which it was offered.
"It's not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a gold coin, and then ask them to work for a day," Gillard said. "We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions."
As Rinehart observed in an earlier magazine piece: "There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you're jealous of those with more money don't just sit there and complain, do something to make more money yourself. Spend less time drinking, smoking and socializing and more time working."
And, apparently, you should be happy with whatever table scraps you receive by way of compensation.
November 24, 2012 10:44 am
And actually her grasp of basic economics sucks, there IS a monopoly on being a millionaire, Once everyone has a million dollars then prices of everything rise accordingly and a million becomes a small sum. I believe that is called inflation. There can only be a relatively small number of rich or there are no rich at all, by definition. Greedy idiot of a woman. But I expect a stirring and utterly tone deaf 15 post defense of her so-called principles. Somewhat unfairly, I won't be reading any of it.
November 25, 2012 2:59 am
Can we get some economic literacy here ?
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
Please find an instance in human history where the price of everything has risen absent government running the printing press.
There is no reason we can not all have the same standard of living as millionaires – most of us today have a standard of living higher than that of the uber rich a century ago.
The problem with Rinehart's remarks is that you dont like them – they are still the truth.
November 25, 2012 2:48 am
Jeff and Jim decide that Joe needs help, so they rob john. Is that moral ?
Does it somehow become moral when it is 100m Jeff's and Jim's.
If you want to do something for someone else – do it, If you want me to – persuade me.
But forcing someone else to do something you think is good is not moral, it is not amoral, it is immoral.
Capitolism and free markets are a convenient fiction. there is no such thing a distinct economic life. We produce to get what we need and want – whatever that may be. Economic needs occupy only two of seven of Maslow's hierarchy of needs yet statisfying any of those needs on the remaining levels can not be accomplished without atleast some economic activity.
When you regulate the market, you are limiting freedom, and you are impairing our ability to satisfy such needs, as love, friendship, personal growth, self-awareness, …..
There is no such thing as economic liberty distinct from any other form of freedom.
The wage argument is trivial to refute – reductio ad absurdum – if there is some minimum wage that is good why isn't higher better ? Why not set the minimum wage to $100/hr ?
Wages are paid from what is produced. If the value of what is produced is insufficient to support a particular wage – no minimum wage will change that. All that will occur is production will decline, standard of living will decline. People will be worse off, not better.
Nearly 80% of economists agree that a minimum wage is a bad idea – because there is lots of data to support that.
It does not assure anyone a "living wage" it just deprives people of jobs, and opportunities.
Once again you have inverted morality, you have made good bad and bad good.
The non-violent actions of free people are never immoral.
A person offering another work for $2/hr or $2/day is not evil. They are providing an opportunity – if no one thinks it is good, then no one needs accept.
There is no such thing as a "race to the bottom". This is just luddite idiocy.
Need we all go out and burn looms because they make it possible for fewer people to produce more ? A less expensive product means more people can afford it, and the primary benefits of inexpensive goods are those at the bottom. In a truly free market, involuntary unemployment is always negligible – there is always a productive use for labor at some wage. In a truly free market, productivity inexorably increases, wages decrease, BUT prices decrease faster. Real free markets are deflationary. Even the quasi free market we have today is fundamentally deflationary – atleast in those parts that are somewhat free. Most everything you buy costs less and is better today than 3 decades ago. Many things cost less without adjusting for inflation. Today's poor have twice the real wealth of those 3 decades ago. Wages may have remained flat but most prices have declined. The standard of living for everyone – especially the poor has increased.
Your "race to the bottom" is actually a race to a better world for all of us.
You are deluded into believing that money is wealth – it is not. It is at best a poor tool for measuring value.
November 25, 2012 1:04 pm
asmith..Do you beleive that all regulation is bad, or just some regulation?
Would it be OK to have work conditions like those we hear about in China? (I say hear about because I have not personally witnessed those conditions)
Is there a place for environmental regulations such as polutants being discharged into rivers, air, etc?
AI believe there is a time and place for regulations, but the regulations we have now are having a negative impact on our nation.
Remeber, the regulations we get are being divised by a group of people that are usually lifer employees of a government agency that may or may not have a direct education in the area they are trying to regulate. That may be why we get so much bad regulation and so much regulation (Job security)
November 24, 2012 10:35 am
A short excerpt from an excellent and fascinating book review by "Nobel prize in economics" winner Robert M. Solow. He covers a lot of ground in four pages on the fallacies of the right-wing version of economics.
JUST AS I WAS wondering how to start this review, along came the Sunday New York Times Magazine with a short article by Adam Davidson with the title "Made in Austria: Will Friedrich von Hayek be the Tea Party's Karl Marx?" One Tea Party activist reported that his group's goal is to fill Congress with Hayekians. This project is unlikely to go smoothly if the price of admission includes an extensive reading of Hayek's writings. As Davidson remarks, some of Hayek's ideas would not go down well at all with the American far right: among them is a willingness to entertain a national health care program, and even a state-provided basic income for the poor.
The source of confusion here is that there was a Good Hayek and a Bad Hayek. The Good Hayek was a serious scholar who was particularly interested in the role of knowledge in the economy (and in the rest of society). Since knowledge—about technological possibilities, about citizens' preferences, about the interconnections of these, about still more—is inevitably and thoroughly decentralized, the centralization of decisions is bound to generate errors and then fail to correct them. The consequences for society can be calamitous, as the history of central planning confirms. That is where markets come in. All economists know that a system of competitive markets is a remarkably efficient way to aggregate all that knowledge while preserving decentralization.
But the Good Hayek also knew that unrestricted laissez-faire is unworkable. It has serious defects: successful actors reach for monopoly power, and some of them succeed in grasping it; better-informed actors can exploit the relatively ignorant, creating an inefficiency in the process; the resulting distribution of income may be grossly unequal and widely perceived as intolerably unfair; industrial market economies have been vulnerable to excessively long episodes of unemployment and underutilized capacity, not accidentally but intrinsically; environmental damage is encouraged as a way of reducing private costs—the list is long. Half of Angus Burgin's book is about the Good Hayek's attempts to formulate and to propagate a modified version of laissez-faire that would work better and meet his standards for a liberal society. (Hayek and his friends were never able to settle on a name for this kind of society: "liberal" in the European tradition was associated with bad old Manchester liberalism, and neither "neo-liberal" nor "libertarian" seemed to be satisfactory.)
The Bad Hayek emerged when he aimed to convert a wider public. Then, as often happens, he tended to overreach, and to suggest more than he had legitimately argued. The Road to Serfdom was a popular success but was not a good book. Leaving aside the irrelevant extremes, or even including them, it would be perverse to read the history, as of 1944 or as of now, as suggesting that the standard regulatory interventions in the economy have any inherent tendency to snowball into "serfdom." The correlations often run the other way. Sixty-five years later, Hayek's implicit prediction is a failure, rather like Marx's forecast of the coming "immiserization of the working class."
November 25, 2012 11:02 am
NYT and other liberal rags constantly print editorials by idiots completely misunderstanding the ideas of scholars they have not even bothered to read.
Both Hayek and Friedman at one point or another accepted some form of government social safetynet – as something that they had decided was not worth fighting over, not as some laudable benefit of government. Neither would have the slightest qualms dismantling the new deal of great society if they had believed that was possible – and that is crystal clear to anyone who has ever read either. When either raised those issues at all it was primarily to argue for constructing them in the least evil way possible, not offering them as some positive good.
That some NYT pundit failed to grasp that makes it clear to anyone that has read Hayek, they the pundit has not. Unfortunately the vast majority of NYT readers as well as TNM posters have never actually read Hayek – or anything significant by any other economists.
Hayek never attempted to construct a modified form of Laissez Faire, but he frequently argued that if government must do something stupid, it should do so in the least damaging way possible.
There was no "good Hayek" and "Bad Hayek" – actually read Hayek – read to portions that the author claims are in conflict. You would have to distort the clear meaning of the words to find them in actual conflict with the rest of what he wrote.
The right may end up dis-satisified with Hayek or Friedman as their standard bearers – but not for the idiotic reasons you gleaned from the NYT.
Hayek and Friedman argued for the greatest individual freedom possible.
They did not argue for conservative government, but for limited government and that is where they will eventually run afoul of the Tea Party.
November 25, 2012 11:32 am
Dave, After years of our discussion I have memorized your point of view on everything. So, I have a filter now, a dedicated e-mail just for receiving TNM posts and I read the ones by those whose objectivity gives them credibility, well some others too I'll admit, but that is my aim, to read the actual moderate posts. I see a few words of yours here and there as I push the next button, so I guess I will continue to read about 0.5 of what you write. This caught me eye:
"NYT and other liberal rags constantly print editorials by idiots completely misunderstanding the ideas of scholars they have not even bothered to read."
Solow has an economics "Nobel Prize," you are an obscure code writer. Ranting about idiots and rags, oh the irony. He was a personal friend of Friedman, by the way.
Here is a quote I find funny
"Everything reminds Milton Friedman of the money supply. Everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers."
Dave for gods sake don't work yourself up into a lather writing long replies to me, I am not reading them. If you write a single pithy sentence I will see it before I push the next button in my e-mail, but more than that… just a waste of your energy.
November 24, 2012 11:18 am
Oh God, here come too many of my words.
My rudeness Priscilla seems to have consisted of observing that the clique of RP. ASmith, Bastiat, and yourself are highly conservative and, with the exception of Asmith, highly partisan GOP supporters. Its OK, Priscilla for you to jump on a new liberal poster and immediately and sarcastically note the she had given the Dem talking points after reading 1 post but its not OK for my to note the same after reading thousands of posts from the conservative wing here claiming, among other offensive rot, that the election results prove that the electorate has become dominated by idiots and slackers (RP), that environmentalists are killers that should "prey for a forgiving god" (Asmith) wishes that the Obama-Biden plane will crash, (Bastiat), or the delusion that the GOP, most of whom only seem to have discovered the existence of latino voters at 11:30 p.m. on Nov 6, truly has their best interests in mind, while the cynical dem party only wants their votes… And on and on while actual moderates are leaving one after the other and saying that they cannot take the character of the right-wing echo chamber here. After a week of listening to GOP partisans say such things I had had it, and said what I perhaps should have said on Nov 7, that the GOP richly earning is defeat. Let me reiterate that.
I am glad you have recovered well, really, but you should expect that when you post the daily partisan GOP talking points again, Benghazi or whatever, I will note it, as you did to that liberal poster who you jumped on and chased away after one post. Moderates do not cede the right of free speech to you worked up partisans.
You have an enormous double standard of internet decency Priscilla, when you finally take note of the many crazy rude things you good buddy Bastiat posts, or the constant over he top malice towards anything connected to liberals or democrats from Asmith, then you will have earned the credibility to complain abut me. Until then I have no sympathy for your one sided idea of nice behavior. Your group has posted countless insults towards anything left of center and rarely if ever conceded any virtues there. And the opposite for right of center. Gosh, how dare I be so rude as to call you guys partisan conservatives. Old wisdom: If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, its a duck! Y'all are exactly what I've said you are, I do not understand why you are not prouder of it, that is the mystery.
The Barnham and Bailey Circus once had an exhibit called the Happy Family: A lion, a tiger and a lamb all sharing one cage peacefully. PT stated that it was a very popular exhibit and that they intended to keep it "as long as the supply of Lambs holds out."
Partisans of both sides think that moderates are lambs who have surrendered their right to have a backbone. No thanks, I think I will keep mine!
November 25, 2012 11:27 pm
Yes. Ian we are all ganged up against you. It is an ultra-extreme hyper falling off the right edge of the world plot to make you apoplectic.
The only person here with a legitmate role as TNM censor is rick. Therefore it can not be a "double standard" if the rest of us only note those comments that offend us personally.
It is not even a "double standard" if we only note SOME of the comments that offend us.
Neither Pearows nor I are the TNM civility police – we are free – as are you, to take offence or not as we please, without being hypocritical.
I was not happy with Bastiat's "libtard" comment and I thought I expressed that.
I do not frequent many real left and right wing blogs specifically because there is too much of that type of comment.
But as best as I could tell Bastiat's venom was targeted at an ideology – liberals, rather than at specific posters to this blog. My primary offense is to the "tard" portion.
You have the right to malign everyone else, so I guess Bastiat is free to malign liberals as a group.