I conjecture that Obama, and Obama’s science czar, is enabled by people like Larry Summers, who can find no end of rationalizations along the lines that Reverend Wright and John Holdren are moderate reformers who want reasonable and moderate changes in our lifestyles, not withstanding the fact that these guys are screaming their heads off that they are fanatics who want to totally smash our way of life. Coalition building is a lot easier if you maintain total delusion about your allies.
Category: politics
Speaking power to truth
If an economist wants to get places, he had best tell politicians and bureaucrats what they want to hear. The danger is that if says it often enough, he will himself come to believe it. Larry Summers is an economist. When Bush was in power, he believed in Bushonomics, which got him into trouble in an academic environment of rigid, mindless, and unthinking left wing orthodoxy. Now, however, it seems he firmly believes in Obanomics.
The universal government white paper:
In short, the white paper tells us: Politicians are of course entirely lily white and innocent, except that the other party allowed bad people in the private sector to do bad things. Some regulatory agencies failed to do enough. Solving the problem requires more power to the government. Those regulatory agencies that failed the worst, will get the largest increase in money and power.
Creating the next crisis:
In a free market, financiers who take stupid risks lose money, and cease to be financiers. The core of the Obama Bush interventions is to ensure that financiers who take stupid risks continue in business and continue in charge of other people’s money. In the Washington Post, Obama’s chief financial advisers explain their program: In theory, securitization should serve to reduce credit risk by spreading it more widely. But by breaking the direct link between borrowers and lenders, securitization led …
“The Goode Family†is not funny
The Goode family are too nice and sincere to laugh at. Where is the liberal fascism and liberal totalitarianism? Observe that the kid gets away with defining his ethnicity as “African American” (he is white from South Africa) while in real life the kid from South Africa who pulled that stunt got expelled from college. The only funny character is the dog, because he is rebelling against the family veganism by devouring every neighborhood pet smaller than himself. The show …
Worshippers of the Obamessiah start to wake up
The New York Times almost gets it right: Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism What the Obama administration is doing is far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a “partnership†in which one partner robs the other. Close but no banana. It is crony capitalism, which at its more socialist extreme is fascism, the corporate state, where business and the citizen are subjugated to the state, to the benefit of the …
Smashing capitalism
President Barack Hussein Obama tells us: Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty. This reads like something out of “Atlas Shruggedâ€. I predict fifty percent inflation or so over the next three or four years – and that is if we eventually turn back from this course, or at least stop walking along it. If, on the other hand, this …
Geithner’s plan explained
President Barack Hussein Obama tells us: Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty. This reads like something out of “Atlas Shruggedâ€. I predict disturbing inflation or so over the next three or four years – and that is if we eventually turn back from this course, or at least stop walking along it. If, on the other hand, this goes …
Racefail 09 explained
Constantinople drew my attention to “This way lies fascism†which explains the conflict of which Racefail 09 is part. The left claims authority to convict people for thought crimes committed in other people’s dreams. The hearer can find an offensive meaning without concern for authorial intent, and the author is guilty regardless of his intended meaning. This leads to conflict, Racefail 09 being part of that conflict. Under Racefail 09 rules, you have no obligation to understand other people’s intended …
The problems with Laissez Faire sexuality
In traditional society, women were strongly encouraged to refrain from sex before marriage, and marry responsible men with good jobs who were able and willing to support a family. Today, women are encouraged to follow their hormones, which tends to result in them have offspring with a long succession of sexy males who disappear, often into jail or dying violently, and who often rough them up and steal their money before leaving. Bryan Caplan correctly argues that the non traditional …