Quote of the Day
But for the act to be virtuous,
the donor must give to the right person,
for the right purpose,
in the right amount,
in the right manner,
and at the right time.
Aristotle
Political Potpourri
At 973 delegates, Mitt Romney is looking to tomorrow's Oregon and Nebraska primaries. Ron Paul announced that he will be no longer be actively campaigning (in ads or appearances) in the remaining states; for some time, I pointed out that I thought he was running for the platform. (Ron Paul was mathematically eliminated from the race for the nomination a few weeks back.) I think it would serve Romney well to give Ron Paul a prime-time speaking slot at the convention.
Mitt Romney continues to poll closely with Obama (+3 CBS/NYT, -1 Gallup). What I particularly noticed was the CBS poll, which showed Obama with a 50% approval rating but only getting 43% of the vote in a matchup with Romney. This should be very troubling for the Obama campaign; one of my favorite statistics to use in this regard was Gov. Ehrlich's 50-odd approval rating in 2006 but he still lost to then Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. It seems to suggest that at least some who approve of Obama's performance are willing, for whatever reason, to give Romney a shot to run with the football. Looking at RCP's latest selection of poll results, I'm seeing several purple/blue states coming into play for Romney for the general election, e.g., Oregon, Maine, Wisconsin, and Michigan. I would be very worried if I was running the Obama campaign: I think the deterioration of the situation in Europe, falling commodity prices, some worrisome signs (e.g., deflationary non-consumer) in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) states, and correcting domestic stocks are all serving as a canary in the coal mine.
If I'm running the Romney campaign, I'm thinking of ways to tie Obama to the European crisis (e.g., unsustainable social/entitlement programs, high debts, low growth, and sticky high unemployment); I'm looking at the fact that despite the Fed's bigger footprint since Dodd N Frankenstein, we are starting to catch whiffs of 2008 even in better-run banks like JP Morgan Chase years after Democrats once again supposedly "fixed" the banking system.
One poll released Monday showed Governor Walker going over 50 (with a 9-point lead over challenger Barrett) in next month's recall election.
I'm somewhat amused by Newsweek's latest cover suggesting Obama is the first "gay" President (remember when they used to call Bill Clinton the first "black" President?) Given Obama penchant for television appearances, I wouldn't be surprised to see "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy: White House Edition".... Maybe they'll get him to change that white and blue sarong to a red, white and blue sarong... When we look at all the problems in this general economy, the barely significant proportion of gays in the general population and the historically less stable nature of their relationships, one has to wonder why this nation has become so obsessed with the issue. I'm personally convinced that it's a case of wag the dog: Obama has nothing of merit to contribute to the resolution of today's economic malaise.
Over the weekend I published a commentary suggesting a cap of 20 years of federal legislative and judicial tenure, single terms for President, non-consecutive terms for US Senate, and a cap of two consecutive terms for the US House. One of the things I pointed out is the fact that Democrats have allowed some of their lawmakers to essentially hold onto their jobs for life, e.g., Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy. So while they get agitated over campaign reform, their veteran lawmakers subordinate the public interest for intrinsically corrupting personal ambition. Charlie Rangel, the disgraced former Ways and Means Chair, after 21 terms in the House, is seeking election once again. I have no dog in this fight (I don't expect that a conservative is going to be elected in New York's newly revamped 13th district), but isn't it time for Rangel to retire? To be honest, Obama has openly suggested that Rangel's best days behind him, but I guess his opinion doesn't account for very much in the 13th district....
I have a one-off post I've been working on as to why I, as a pro-liberty conservative, would support Romney while many others don't; I should be publishing it sometime over the coming week.
Daily Bell, "Thank Goodness For Regulation": Thumbs UP!
What would we do without Paul "I love to tax, spend, and regulate" Krugman here to extol the virtues of Big Government and to confound the differences between government failure with market failure? The editorial staff at Daily Bell is being sarcastic in referring to the latest tiresome ode to regulation by Krugman, of course: government has been part of the problem of banking, not its solution.
I'm not a doomsayer, but Mitch Snyder a few months back wrote a very interesting rant against the Fed (10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve). I particularly would like to draw attention to points #4 (the secret loans made by the Fed from the start of the 2007 recession through 2010), #5 ("the government carry trade": borrow cheaply from the Fed and lend it back out to government at a higher rate), and #9 (excerpts from Bernanke's long series of Pollyannish statements regarding the real estate bubble up through the 2008 economic tsunami).
So, for example, on point 4, at risk of oversimplification, take the fact that everyone has been fixated on the hundreds of billions of dollars in TARP funds--but in fact, the Fed lent more than the equivalent of all the TARP funds to each of 7 major banks and trillions in aggregate to others: the equivalent of years of annual federal revenues. Clever bait-and-switch, don't you think? All of this is opaque and violates the principle of transparency; God only knows what this creature of crony capitalism has done meddling in Europe and/or other places. Others focus on foreign non-interventionism in terms of the military and diplomacy, but we should also minimize meddling in the monetary affairs of other countries: you break it, you own it. Has this country learned nothing from the tragic interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan? Even if "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke isn't flying around in a Black Hawk, he's still dangerous...
If anyone was confused by my ironic past selection of Bernanke as Man of the Year, make no mistake: I think it's time to end the Fed, for the Congress to take back their constitutional power and responsibility and not to delegate it. As the Daily Bell notes, the Fed has quite a history since its inception just before the Roaring 20's, Great Depression and subsequent manic depressive asset bubbles. When you take into account the incompetence of regulators, increasing the power of fallible, overwhelmed, overextended regulators merely scales up the magnitude of the consequences of their mistakes...
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Rolling Stones, "It's Only Rock 'N Roll"
