Eulogy For America

The country that once elected leaders whose ideas upheld liberty now elects leaders whose sweet-sounding platitudes and woozy promises are all that is required, and whose actual, dangerous ideas need not be examined until after Election Day.

The country that defended property rights now seizes 40-percent of our income in a myriad of taxes imposed by all levels of government — with even larger levies on incomes, profits, investments, and savings on the horizon.

The country that championed capitalism now vilifies our industries, cripples them with regulations, seizes their profits, then declares that the free market has failed and government must take over.

The country that made possible the great industrial titans—the Henry Fords, Thomas Edisons, and others whose productive genius moved mankind forward—now thinks that government can run things better, and that government should own, operate, and finance our corporations, deciding which will survive and which will die, creating a new kind of soup kitchen where emaciated companies stand in a bread-line waiting for their bailout.

The country that protected the individual now protects polar bears, spotted owls, caribou, and the wilderness at the expense of human life.

The country that fought a revolution to end the abuse of power now elects politicians who wallow in power like hippos in mud, such as members of congressional subcommittees who hold hearings threatening the prosperity or very existence of American business firms, and then let the hearings end with little or no result when the hapless firms make sufficient contributions to the reelection campaigns of the congressmen.(*)

It is the mighty that have the farthest to fall. Most often, that fall is not precipitated by one great clash with the enemy but, as Mark Steyn explains, "by a thousand trivial concessions, until one day you wake up and you don't need to sign a formal instrument of surrender because you did it piecemeal."

Is it too late to slam on the emergency brakes? Observe the altruist-collectivist rhetoric of high-ranking members of the Obama administration. Or witness the moral depth of the government's representatives. Or study the soundness of the state's economic policies.

Americans are up to their necks in the quicksand of statism and the more they struggle - the more they cram their destructive 'stimulus' packages through congress and the closer they crawl to universal health care - the harder they will find it to claw back out of the mire.

Steyn's thousand trivial concessions are upon us. Tomorrow Canadians may wake up next to the world's biggest welfare state, trillions of dollars in debt and begging for the self-esteem it once deserved.

Draft Peter Schiff For Senate

Web-savvy Libertarians in California have launched a nationwide movement to draft a New Haven-born celebrity pundit to take on Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd. Their first big test comes Saturday.

The pundit is Peter Schiff. He has been a fixture bashing the federal bank bailout and stimulus efforts on national TV news (FOXNews, CNBC, CNN) panels because of his early predictions of the Wall Street meltdown. He published a prescient book in 2007 called Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse. “The man who saw it all before everybody saw it,” as Fox anchor Liz Claman introduced him.

Schiff, who now runs a Darien stock brokerage firm, served as an economic adviser to Libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul, whose candidacy was elevated by a then-unprecedented grassroots Internet effort. [...]

The campaign has an online “headquarters” and assorted rallying cries, including: “Stop the Bailouts.” “Stop the stimulus!” It has Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter presences, too — even though Schiff insisted in an interview that he has had nothing to do with the effort and would almost definitely not heed a call to actually run. That’s right. Almost definitely.

“Want Peter to run? Pledge! Show him we’ve got his back,” proclaims the home page for an affiliated site coordinating a “Moneybomb” for this Saturday. A “moneybomb” means supporters are hoping to raise an eye-popping pile of pledges in one day to show serious support for a Schiff candidacy — the way a one-day moneybomb propelled Ron Paul’s candidacy a year ago with a record haul.

In some ways the effort mirrors the early drive to find a candidate to challenge Connecticut U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2006, only this time from the right, not the left. In 2006, activists from across the country who supported challenger Ned Lamont poured money and cultivated volunteers through left-leaning national websites like Daily Kos and MoveOn.org. The campaign was national from the start, born at the netroots.*

I'm currently in the process of reading Schiff's 2007 book "Crash-Proof: How To Profit From The Coming Economic Collapse" which was mentioned in the above blurb. So far it has been excellent. I recommend picking it up to anybody who has money in the stock market and has taken a hit or simply wants to hear Alan Greenspan get taken apart. Although Schiff's book does focus on the American economy, its implications for Canada are clear and his discussion of the global economy is helpful as well.

Here's the main video that has been enlisted towards the end of earning money for Schiff's "moneybomb".

A Word To The Monetary Inflation Skeptics

"Screwed."



Devaluing our money like it's going out of style.

Hey, remember when the value of money was objective? Sweet, sweet memories of a gold standard.

H/t Unambiguously Ambidextrous

The Big O Visits Iowa - No, Ottawa

Hopey One Kenobi made the long trek from D.C. to Canada's seat of power today but his visit didn't go quite as planned.

President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper just started their joint news conference, the first such dual podium event for the new president.

The newness is showing - the president began his remarks with, "It's a great pleasure to be here in Iowa - Ottawa."

Obama says "it's great to be" pretty much anywhere he goes. Iowa was a key battleground state, but also the Jan. 4, 2008 caucus was his first win during the Democratic primary election. It swung his way in November, and a Downtown Des Moines rally on Halloween was one of his last campaign stops before winning the presidency.

Flubbing the name of a location has happened to many politicians, and has happened to the president before.*

Via Gateway Pundit:

"Maybe he thought he was in one of the northern 57 states?"

Combine this flub with his previous shout out to the "President of Canada" and I'm starting to think he doesn't care about us quite as much as our apparent obsession with him merits.

And, at the end of the day, we'll still adore him. There's something very romantic about unrequited love.

Does that answer your question, Jarrett?

Stephen Harper On Wolf Blitzer's 'The Situation Room'

A very good performance, I think. I was most impressed by his tactfully implicit threat to Obama about the 'Buy American' clause of their porkulus package - a clause that is gone but definitely not forgotten. Also, Harper hit the point about the potential costs of protectionism for the global economy quite well when he said that there is no surer way to turn a recession into a depression than to pursue protectionism given our current state of financial affairs.

All in all, he earned an 'A-' grade. The minus is in there because I'm still a little sore with him over the budget. Only time will heal that wound.



Exit Question: Is it absolutely crucial that he begins every goddamn sentence with "Well, look..."?

H/t Lance

"It's Pure F*cking Cowardice"

It has long been understood that one of the stickiest problems for any invasionary effort or regime change is the transition from control by the occupying power to control by domestic forces.

Accordingly, some reasonable concerns have been raised about whether the Iraqi police are prepared for this transition. Reports indicate that many members of their police force are lazy and corrupt. Lazy because they are unwilling to do their jobs by protecting Iraqi citizens and engaging in actual altercations with insurgents and corrupt because, allegedly, many of them have ties to the militia which pits them against American soldiers and raises serious questions about conflicting loyalties.

The following is a video of an American soldier yelling at the members of an Iraqi police battalion, calling them out on their cowardice and duplicity. Cussing, cussing, cussing. Definitely not safe for work. But it's completely satisfying and highly recommended.



Choice moments:

"You want everything from me. You want weapons and ammunition. You want fuel, you want trucks. But you're too f*cking pussy to go three kilometers down the road and go get the people who are tearing this f*cking town apart. It's pure f*cking cowardice."

"You want to fix your image? This group right here - f*ck your stupid checkpoints, they're worthless. Get together, get all your weapons, and start marching south towards the river. I guarantee you'll get into a gun fight and I guarantee you'll f*ck some people up. Get down there and kick some ass."

He does get quite liberal with his use of female rhetoric with the intention of being insulting but it's not too much worse than you'd hear in the average hockey arena. Unfortunately, misogynistic expressions seem to be part and parcel of military-speak (and hockey-speak). I'm sure that the American soldier in this video loves women. And respects them. For their brains.

H/t Jonah Goldberg

Vladimir Putin To The US: "No, Seriously, Socialism Doesn't Work"

Via Gateway Pundit:

"We must not revert to isolationism and unrestrained economic egotism... Excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence is another possible mistake. True, the state's increased role in times of crisis is a natural reaction to market setbacks. Instead of streamlining market mechanisms, some are tempted to expand state economic intervention to the greatest possible extent... In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated."

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin
Opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
January 28, 2009

Barack Obama: making history's mistakes all over again.

Well, he did promise change, didn't he?


UPDATE: A little relevant wisdom -

"The kind of events that once took place will by reason of human nature take place again."

--Thucydides (~400 BC)

UPDATE II: Reaching just a little farther back into history -

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office"

--Aesop (~550 BC)

America: All Of Your Businesses Will Be Ours

Yes. Let's do this thing.

Captain Capitalism:

First you have the corporate tax rate. Oh sure, not a big advantage, but a large enough advantage it behooves the question, why havn't American firms been fleeing north to set up corporate HQ's? I mean if they're going to endure constant negative media coverage, an ignorant villianization of their existence, why suffer a 39.5% tax rate when you can suffer a mere 33.5% tax rate.

Oh, and did I mention they have nationalized health care? That may not seem like an advantage to us die hard capitalists, but for a corporation that would cut IMMEASURABLY MUCHO on their labor costs as they no longer have to pay health care insurance. So lower corporate taxes, plus savings of roughly 1/3 on labor, all the while still having the benefits of a modern, English speaking economy geographically close to their market. Please, somebody tell me why corporations haven't fled to Canada yet?

Second, corruption. I opined earlier that the US' corruption index would collapse under all the corruption, sleaze and parasitic scum buckets ranging from everybody like big fish like Bernie Madoff to the millions of smaller scumbucket fish like the investment banking, blue blood, bulge bracket nepotist and cronyists who got their jobs because of daddy and not because of skill, but forget that. Even ignoring that likely collapse, Canada is already significantly less corrupt. 8.7 vs. a 7.2. Why deal with a bunch of criminals in institutions such as the government, corporations, your employer or your educational institution when you can have significantly less crime in the institutions of Canada? It's not like we're Somalia, but give it time.

Third, government deficits as a % of GDP. Never mind that the OECD data I pulled for the US is already outdated as Obama just sign the "F#ck America over" bill which puts the real government deficit closer to 10% GDP. Let's just "hope" it stays at the previously OECD projected 5.2%. Whether it's 5.2% or 10%, it's a many-multiple of the insignificant .5% deficit the Canadians are racking up.

Fourth, and what does the fiscal recklessness that causes deficits culminate into? Why the national debt.

Yes, the national debt!

"Sick and tired of having to pay for what you want to consume? Why then just borrow it from future generations by saddling (and screwing them over) with the national debt. All you have to do is vote for socialists who couldn't balance their check books as mommy and daddy paid for their philosophy degree in college, who inevitably ended up in politics, because, well, that's where true scum bags with no skill end up. Slavery isn't dead! It's just deferred! Vote for the national debt!"

Apparently the Canadians (and I know, this sounds crazy) don't hate their children nor their grandchildren. Apparently they seem to have this thing called "fiscal austerity" or "fiscal discipline." Because they've ran smaller deficits, they naturally have smaller debts. Their national debt is only 22% GDP while ours is 52% (oh, and yeah, that doesn't include the debt the genius "stimulus" package just saddled us with).

So you can either forever serve in servitude to pay for the "Great Society" and social security and medicare (because that form of slavery is OK), or you can move and not be so indebted.

Fifth (or as Dave Chappelle says, "fif") corroborating their fiscal austerity and their remarkable ability to maintain the simple 3rd grade level concept of spending within their means, it is not just the government that seems to balance the books, but the people in general. The current account deficit, though a deficit, is only 1.8% of GDP compared to the US' 4.4% (again, Obama, socialists, stimulus, not adjusted, more like 10% GDP, etc. etc., never mind). Yes, not a surplus, but 1.8% versus what in reality will be closer to 11% in the US, where would you rather be.

And finally, six, that whole thing about "Canadians are taxed WAY more than the US!"

Oh really?

You see the ideal measure of the tax rate is government spending as a percent of GDP. In that revenues don't really matter since spending, not matter if you pay for it with borrowed money or current tax revenues has to be repaid with future taxes. I've mentioned this before, but for all practical purposes, the US and Canada have the same effective tax rates, both roughly 39%. At least in Canada you get "free" health care (and I know how weak that argument is, but just to goad the left).

PLUS: C'Mon, Move To Canada

Bushbama: Change You Can Believe In

What do a non-practicing Jew, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have in common?

They all love pork!



New president. Same old disastrous financial policies.

Bushbama, anyone?

H/t Infinite Unknown

"A Free Market Could Have Prevented This"

The most disgusting and disheartening aspect of the current financial crisis has been the false accusations lobbied at the innocent free market in efforts to assign political blame. American Democrats especially have been guilty of this misdirection, using it to push for massive intervention in the economy which is precisely what we're seeing in their constantly-expanding pork-laden stimulus package.

Frustratingly, many defenders of capitalism appear to concede the point in their arguments. They argue for limited government and free markets without understanding or explaining what would separate those policies from the ones that got us into this mess. What's worse, these arguments are now frequently heard being spouted by CEOs and business executives. If you can't count on big business to defend capitalism, who is there left?

Luckily, there are still a few rational businessmen remaining, foremost among them John Allison, former CEO of BB&T Corp, which has been one of the few large banks capable of turning a major profit in recent years:

"[A] lot of financial institutions did dumb stuff," says Allison. "[B]ut they did it in the context of a government system that was misleading. I mean, probably all of us were misled." "Once you had this government -- through the Federal Reserve, through the [Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.], through Freddie Mac -- supporting this expansion of housing, it's easy to believe that housing prices won't ever fall," he says. "That was the context in [which] very poor decisions were made."

Allison puts this point quite clearly. Yes, poor business decision were made but they would not have occurred - at least, not for very long - had the state not encouraged short-sighted business policies through government intervention. The free market demands honesty from corporations whereas the government demands only a decent lobby group. In a free market, your decisions are either based in reality and so will prove to be profitable or they are based in self-deception or altruism and so your company will fail. This equation changes, however, once you introduce the element of government. What is sensible is no longer the ultimate standard for earning a profit and this fundamental shift reverberates through every corner of the market. We have witnessed the effects of this distortion since the 1990s.

Unlike many alleged capitalists, Mr. Allison is unwilling to let the free market take the fall for something that should clearly be laid at the feet of the government.

On the TARP bailout:

As the financial crisis takes its toll on both healthy and troubled institutions, Allison is highly critical of what he suggests is an overregulated banking industry. He says mistakes made by the Clinton and Bush administrations led to an inevitable crash in the sector. More recently, the Treasury's bailout efforts though the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, has been misguided in its approach to the problem, he says.

"This is potentially the worst economic correction that I experienced in my career," he says. "What's unique in this correction was the panic created unfortunately by the Treasury, the Fed and [former President Bush] in October."

On the "bailout & pray" approach to the state's business policy:

Allison takes issue with the government's ability to produce -- "out of the blue" -- $700 billion for the bailout package; the "incredible arbitrariness" of saving some banks and letting others fail; and the lack of consistency within the plan so far, he says.

"Markets hate that kind of stuff," Allison says.

On where this recession started:

Allison says the roots of this downturn were laid out by years of easy credit and misguided policies from the Fed and Republican and Democratic administrations.

For one, the aggressively low interest-rate management by former Fed Alan Greenspan created the "illusion of low risk" in the economy that caused consumers and investors to "save less" and "make more risky investments," he says. From the early 1990s through 2007, "we didn't have a meaningful correction," he says.

"Every time there was a bump, the Fed did everything they could to smooth that bump out," he says. "[W]hat they did was defer the problems and create a much bigger problem."

...

Most importantly, he took issue with the Clinton administration's affordable housing policy objectives, which ultimately led to the solidification of government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as major players in the mortgage market.

"Homeownership is a good thing in a broad context, but encouraging people to buy homes they can't afford is not a good thing," he says. "If you want to look at the proximate cause for this mess you got to focus on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They would have never existed in the free market. They drove the mortgage market."

This is a crucial point. As Kevin Gaudet from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation pointed out in a previous video, the government has begun picking and choosing which banks and institutions are worthy of saving and which ones can be allowed to burn. Unsurprisingly, the banks that they are anointing as "Too Big To Fail" are for the most part the profoundly inefficient ones.

Allison has a practical suggestion for the President:

He suggests that the government offer homebuyers a 10% tax credit to encourage consumers to purchase homes that are already built or in the process of being built in order to clear the excessive inventory. The tax credit would "create a floor on the housing market," he says.

"That's very important ... to the capital markets," he says. "... So even if it meant house prices were going to go down another 10%, but you knew that's where they were going to stop, then you could re-price the capital markets and value all this stuff."

If most business executives had Mr. Allison's integrity, the government would have never been allowed to get away with the wholesale distortion of market forces that it did and we would not be looking at one of the worst recessions in the history of the global economy.

As Allison puts it, "A free market could have prevented this."

Regarding The Issue Of Immigration

Thomas Friedman points us towards a unique panacea to our economies woes:

"All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."

I'm particularly opposed to what I have identified to be a distinctly anti-immigration strain in the North American conservative movement. The situation is particularly bad in the United States where, under current immigration laws, many of the great "Americans" of the past century would have been turned away at the border before achieving their fortunes or fame.

A truly moral immigration policy must be an open one, which is not to say an unregulated one. A strict screening process is an absolute necessity in order to prevent the enemies of the West, the criminal element, and individuals who have certain contagious diseases from entering the country. This is the only way to consistently apply the idea that every human being is free to act on their own rational judgment so long as they do not violate the individual rights of others.

The choice to immigrate to Canada or the United States does not directly violate anybody's rights. To deny non-criminal individuals access to our country is to employ state coercion for the wrong ends, since there can be no rational justification for the initiation of force against another human being. As a policy, then, restricted immigration violates the rights of both potential immigrants and the citizens who would like to associate with those immigrants, whether through friendship or commerce.

In the comments section of the Friedman article, Maxime Rainville parodies a typical argument against open immigration that we're hearing more and more often in these trying economic times:

Instead of worrying about creating jobs for people from abroad, Senator X should worry about creating jobs for Americans first. Americans are already suffering because of the current crisis and shouldn't have to compete with cheap labor imported from foreign countries. This is the same laissez-faire attitude that got us into this mess. Government must devote its energy to creating millions of new green collar, high paying, unionized jobs. That's what's best for America. Why does Senator X want to destroy America?

We hear this very same tune being sung by certain Canadian conservatives as well. The argument assumes, however, the profoundly statist premise that citizens have a "right" to employment and, what's more, that the government should be permitted to use force to keep competition from foreign countries from crossing the border.

But no such right to employment exists. The basic principles of liberty oblige us to consistently recognize the right of any individual to form a contract with any other individual. As such, an employer is perfectly justified in both hiring foreigners and firing native Canadians.

Another typical argument against open immigration is demonstrated by commenter Glen:

Out of those 2 million immigrants that claim they are going to work 18 hours a day, I wonder where exactly that might be, and how many of these 2 million will just come here to collect welfare or unemployment insurance.

The idea that immigrants come to our country merely to collect welfare cheques - besides being largely untrue - is not an argument against open immigration but an argument against the welfare state. This kind of reasoning is tantamount to the suggestion that, because of the immorality of our welfare state, moral individuals should be barred from entering it. This is both absurd and indefensible.

Regarding Friedman's proposal, however, I cannot claim to be altogether convinced that an open immigration policy holds the key to restoring our financial health. The reason that we are currently experiencing one of the worst recessions in the past century can be summarized in two simple and familiar words: government intervention. Accordingly, the key to our health moving forward will be found only in massive deregulation and a commitment to the principles capitalism. It is crucial to note, however, that these principles of capitalism demand an open immigration policy as well.

Maybe America Could Have Afforded Her Ideas After All ...

Remember when Hillary Clinton let it slip during the Democratic primaries that America couldn't afford all of her ideas?

Little did we know that Clinton may have been a pretty cheap date in comparison.

David Frum:

President Obama and the Democrats have responded [to the economic crisis] by steering the US radically to the left. Since World War II, the federal government has most years spent less than one dollar in five of national income. Once the stimulus gets underway, the federal government will spend more than one dollar in four. The cost of everything the Democrats want to do comes closer to one dollar in three.

We’re facing more regulation of everything from high finance to the ordinary workplace. The Democrats are expanding Medicaid to crowd out private insurance. The federal government wants a huge new role in redirecting private investment in transportation and energy in the name of “green jobs.”

In 1996, Bill Clinton asserted, "We will meet these challenges, but not through big government. The era of big government is over."

Would President Billary have been as intent on sinking so many hundreds of billions of dollars into the black hole that is the porkulus package?

I, for one, think that the damage would have been marginally smaller.

Oh, Bill. If only you had been right about the era of big government being over.

"The Capitalists Will Sell Us The Rope With Which We Will Hang Them"

As the rising tide of government intervention comes to consume more and more of the formerly private sectors of the American economy by way of this outrageous porkulus package, one is tempted to wonder what enemy of big business is perpetrating such a great injustice against the ranks of the so-called capitalists.

Hell, there doesn't appear to be a single component of this bill that ought to attract the support of business, especially since the portion of the package that is dedicated to business tax relief has become negligible, in stark contrast to efforts to entice business into giving up their freedom in previous decades.

So what fiendish enemy could possibly be hoodwinking big business into supporting this destruction of the free market?

Unfortunately, in the era of Obama, the greatest threat to big business is big business itself.

Devoid of anything resembling principle, these companies will sell themselves down the river with smiles on their faces for the illusion of security and, more importantly, to shift responsibility from themselves to the government.

As Vladimir Lenin chillingly put it, "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." How very right he seems to have been.

Michael G. Franc:

As the trillion-dollar-plus economic stimulus bill moved through the legislative pipeline, the portion devoted to business tax relief shrank, and shrank, and shrank. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, the bill filed early this a.m. had been shorn of all but a few items of non-simulative tax pork worth a mere $6.15 billion over the next decade.

This is significant because, historically, business tax relief is the lure that attracts the support of large business trade associations to unwieldy legislative monstrosities such as the economic stimulus bill. Indeed, earlier this week top officials at business groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (among many others) were dropping hints that their organizations would take the bait.

But even as the conferees opted for more spending and less tax relief, the business lobbies held firm in their support of today’s bill. Remarkably, the National Association of Manufacturers not only endorsed the final agreement, but informed Members of Congress that it would be “key voting” the vote on final passage. “Key voting” is the trade association’s way of elevating the importance of a particular vote to Category Five status.

Message: We don't just like this legislation; we really like it.

To NAM, the pro-business position is to vote for a bill that reverses the highly successful welfare reforms of 1996 and drastically expands the welfare state, does extreme violence to the concept of federalism, and greatly shifts the responsibility and power over health care delivery and decision making from individuals to government, among many other failings.

A top NAM official explained:

We are in extraordinary times. We feel a balanced spending and tax relief package to revitalize our economy is needed. All of our members are on the frontlines of this crisis and are very eager to see some help from Washington… For companies that are struggling right now, that cash infusion could be the difference between life and death.

Ditto for the U.S. Chamber. A revealing story that appeared today in the McClatchy chain notes:

The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a speech in Detroit Thursday, tried to put a brave face on the tough year ahead. Thomas Donohue acknowledged that big business didn't get in the stimulus bill some of the tax-relief measures it most wanted, but promised the Chamber's support.

"The bottom line is that at the end of the day, we're going to support the legislation. Why? Because with the markets functioning so poorly, the government is the only game in town capable of jump-starting the economy," Donohue said.

Ayn Rand, call your office.

Or, better yet, why don't we send every member of congress a copy of Atlas Shrugged and ask them if they can spot anything familiar.

Not that they would read it. Apparently, employees of the government aren't obliged to read anything at all, least of all bills that they're voting on.

The Foot-In-The-Door Philosophy: How Democrats Are Smuggling Socialized Medicine Into America

The following is a timely reminder for Barack Obama's stimulus crowd from Ronald Reagan circa 1960.



Hauntingly relevant, no?

Titanic Deck Chairs:

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."

The stimulus bill extends Medicare benefits to millions of people who lost work, extends COBRA benefits for years and picks up 65% of those premiums, and attacks the private market in electronic medical records. After passing SCHIP (greatly expanded from the bill Bush vetoed) they are also targeting Medicare for even more expansion.

H/t Maggie's Farm

"We Are All Socialists Now"

Gulp. This is going to be a long four years.

Bush brought the Age of Reagan to a close; now Obama has gone further, reversing Bill Clinton's end of big government. The story, as always, is complicated. Polls show that Americans don't trust government and still don't want big government. They do, however, want what government delivers, like health care and national defense and, now, protections from banking and housing failure. During the roughly three decades since Reagan made big government the enemy and "liberal" an epithet, government did not shrink. It grew. But the economy grew just as fast, so government as a percentage of GDP remained about the same. Much of that economic growth was real, but for the past five years or so, it has borne a suspicious resemblance to Bernie Madoff's stock fund. Americans have been living high on borrowed money (the savings rate dropped from 7.6 percent in 1992 to less than zero in 2005) while financiers built castles in the air.(*)

In other words, Americans want big government without big government. They want to have their cake and to eat it too.

Please wake up, friends to the south. You're being slipped the roofie of socialism and it's going to give you one hell of a hangover. Take it from a country that knows about expensive social programs and the damage that welfarism can do.

H/t Darcey

Prostitutes & Beer

Marc Faber is a brilliant investment analyst. From the sounds of it, he also likes to party.

The Daily Telegraph:

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer/Software it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part.

ALSO:

The US government has begun to subscribe to the increasingly popular Zimbabwe School of Economics. Canadian political officials have been following it for decades. Isn't it about time that we started listening to the Austrians again?



H/t Infinite Unknown

Saturday Night's All Right For Link Dumping

Good afternoon, my beloved readers. This has been a busy, busy day for me so I'm not going to have the chance to do much updating. To give me peace of mind, and also to keep you entertained, I'll clear my tab bar of its most interesting material and submit it for your consideration.

Titanic Deck Chairs: "The Nationalized Health Care Fight That Never Was?"

If Democrats learned anything from the HillaryCare defeat, it was the danger of admitting to their wish to federalize the health market. Since returning to power, they've pursued a new strategy: to stealthily and incrementally expand government control. "What no one is paying attention to in the [stimulus]," says Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, "is that Democrats are making a big grab at the health-care sector."

Heroes of Capitalism: an excellent blog that provides daily updates about great capitalists, living and dead.

What is a hero of capitalism?
Someone who used private property* to produce wealth.

Everyday there will be a featured hero. Though many of the heroes had far more than one accomplishment, only one will be highlighted at a time.

The Western Standard: Harper's golden opportunity to radically embrace trade liberalization and free up the borders.

If the results of this survey can be trusted, and if public sentiment has not changed dramatically since the data was collected, the Conservative government could dismantle Canadian protectionism and pursue an aggressive policy of unilateral free trade with little political risk.

Have a great Saturday!

Obama: I Don't Understand This Economics Business But I'm Pretty Sure This Is Bush's Fault

US President Barack Obama descended from his well-heated White House today to give the misguided North American masses a shot of wisdom about the economy.

Straight from the horse's mouth:

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

But don't get him wrong: he loves the American constitution. Just not those nasty parts about property rights and the limited role of the state in the individual's life.

Of course, he's right about tax cuts alone doing little to correct the fundamentals of the economy. Tax cuts need to be accompanied by spending cuts and it is well-covered ground that the Bush administration had a rather difficult time rolling back the spending.

But that isn't the gist of Obama's opinion editorial. Rather, he's looking to throw out the baby with the bath water. He is rejecting capitalism because conservative socialism didn't work. Bush did not govern like a capitalist; he governed like a big government "compassionate conservative" type. Accordingly, the flaws in the Bush method are not the flaws of capitalism. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. The only tonic to the current financial crisis is a return to capitalism.

The Obama plan will replace flawed economics with even more profoundly flawed economics. Boy, the next four years ought to be a hoot.

H/t Kathryn Jean Lopez

Chilling Question Of The Day: Is China More Capitalist Than The US?

AP:

While China improves its business climate by lowering the burden of state confiscation, the US plans to increase it, and in some cases by a significant amount. Meanwhile, the House last night voted 237-170 to sink $15 billion into the American auto industry, with government officially owning part of three private auto makers in order to dictate to management how to run their businesses. Management welcomed the move, and in fact wanted Congress to buy an even bigger stake in these companies.

[...]

When one looks to Beijing for rational tax policies … well, that’s just a sad day for Americans, even if it does portend a brighter future for China.

I recall a day when 'grace under fire' was considered a supreme virtue in business and inviting government into the management of your company an unthinkable ignominy. The American response to the current financial crisis, and particularly the clambering of the corporate community for government handouts, suggests just how far America has strayed from this vision of honourable conduct in business. Is China actually more capitalist than America? Of course not. But when the question can be asked without the intention of provoking laughter, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Not A Joke: Obama Spent $11 PER PERSON On His Campaign

... Compared to McCain's spending of $1.49 per person.

4-Block World paints the picture for us:



There has never been a campaign in U.S. history that has spent even close to this kind of money. I guess the night was historic in more ways than one, am I right Mr. Obama?

Now, I should caution, the number $700 million may be a bit inflated. I found the number $640 million in a bunch of articles but the contrast is startling either way.

H/t Fairly Conservative