The important work of moving the world forward
does not wait to be done
by perfect men.
George Eliot
Obama Narcissistic Behavior Watch
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| Barack Obama Just Doesn't Measure Up to Superman, Übermensch or Otherwise After his meeting with Obama, Superman announced that he is no longer a US citizen HT Drudge Report Rumors had surfaced last year that Superman might run for President until Sean Hannity and Donald Trump found a copy of Kal-El's Kryptonian birth certificate |
in Europe and the US
When I think of growth, I'm thinking of alleviating supplier-based constraints (e.g., taxes, regulations, protectionist policies, and undue uncertainty (e.g., renewal of the Bush tax cuts)). But Soros and other progressives see things differently: "Soros argued that the focus on austerity instead of growth had been a mistake by the European authorities." I recently reprinted a chart from de Rugy which showed year-over-year spending hardly went down drastically. What Soros means by growth is clearly stimulus spending. And let's never forget Obama and Cameron's "balanced approaches" of tax increases and spending cuts (well, Obama is as hard to pin down on the latter as a wet noodle).
De Rugy has an interesting NR post on this topic entitled "More Spending Won't Save Europe". In particular, she references Scott Sumner, whom suggests the Swedish model--monetary stimulus and a budget SURPLUS. Let me try to rephrase it in what I hope is a more readable context. When it comes to balancing budgets, we either decrease spending or increase taxes. Now what the neo-Keynesians worry about is budget cuts because that takes money out of the economy, all other things held equal.What de Rugy and Sumner are talking about is that the tax increase bit, a form of austerity, is also lethal from an economic perspective, i.e., taxes take money out of the private sector side of the economy. (I happen to think austerity is much worse from the private sector approach, i.e., higher taxes, because the private-sector economy is far more efficient.)
The real issue is what happens in the aftermath, say, of public sector austerity. Remember the Milton Friedman discussion (also cited below) of maintaining a thermostat in money supply. So say if public sector austerity contracts the money supply; what you do is offset it with an increase in the money supply.
So in an American context, say, we finally got rid of the Deadbeat-in-Chief and hired someone whom understood business and economics, here's how it might look: if President Romney agreed to NO tax increases, but implemented a $1.3T budget cut (I understand this is never going to happen, because no one is going to cut the budget 40% or so across the board, but for the sake of simplicity assume it can be), the Fed would agree to expand the monetary supply by a commensurate amount, say, for simplicity sake, it does it by BUYING Treasury bonds. (Buying puts dollars back into the money system; selling contracts the money supply.)
Thus, by analogy if Greek austerity shrank the number of euros in the local money supply, we would suggest BUYING Euro based bonds. But easing off austerity is unacceptable: it's like deferring cancer treatment until the cancer has advanced to a terminal stage. The earlier Greece resolves its issues, the less need for inevitable, even more radical austerity measures down the line.
Classical Liberalism: Dr. Ashford's Series #6:
Anarcho-Capitalism
This is probably my favorite video of the series. I wrote the following yesterday in my lead response to a Matt Miller Washington Post op-ed, where he calls for a statist solution of education based on crony unionism:
Government is systematically incompetent and inefficient, unlike free market capitalism where transactions are voluntary and competition exists, companies have a natural incentive to wring out excessive costs and innovate products and services.[By the way, my rant hasn't attracted any appreciable pageviews, but I think it's one of the most interesting rants I've ever written for the blog and probably one of the "most radical" because I end up saying, "Let's privatize public education." Obviously I'm a realist and realize that it's not a politically viable option; I understand resistance to change; Governor Scott Walker is paying a political price for doing modest reforms--for example, taking away the union's right to have health insurance purchased at noncompetitive prices through a crony affiliate or to demand bonus years of annual pay at retirement. I haven't followed Wisconsin's legislature, but did Walker manage to accomplish certain minimally necessary common sense reforms like sunsetting pension systems for public sector employees below the age of 45, abolishing tenure, linking objective measures of student performance to compensation increases, and outlawing seniority-biased layoff schemes?]
I have a draft, part of which has been finished for some time now, on how a pro-liberty conservative could support Romney. Just to give a brief preview: from a policy standpoint I have issues with Romney all over the place. I literally cringe every time he says anything about foreign policy; it's like he's willing to raise whatever bid Obama has on the table. I want to hear him talk about not repeating the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan; I want to hear him say that the same spendthrift disease that pervades the other 80% of the budget also pervades DoD and the State Department (it's not like those bureaucrats are any more competent and productive just because they are in DoD or the State Department). I want to hear him say that pick and choose spending cuts is just as ineffective as Obama's pick and choose spending. I want to hear him talk about tax simplification and budget cut simplification (i.e., across-the-board cuts).
The interesting thing is I haven't come to my quoted conclusion from a standpoint of first principles but in a more inductive manner; it's the strongest statement of its kind that I've made to date. Sometime back I think I reflected on Milton Friedman's point that he would just as well do away with the Fed Reserve and put in mechanized rules, sort of like a thermostat for money supply. I'm increasingly impatient with the backdoor sausage making, the grandstanding, etc. We don't even see the most common sense reforms like hiring and travel freezes, suspensions of employee contributions to federal 401K accounts, project deferments, cancellation of conferences for federal employees, etc.: any beginning of recognition of cutbacks we see in the private sector in recessionary times or nearing bankruptcy.
I want to see less of this manic "we can't afford to do nothing": it's getting to the point the only conclusion I can come to is that almost whatever the Congress does is all but guaranteed to be wrong. Going back to Friedman's mechanized rules for the money supply, there are times I wish that there were mechanized rules for the Congress. I just don't think the Congress can even help it: they have to add on things besides the minimal needed.
I no longer have sacred cows. Defense is something discussed in the video, for example. One of the things I've been most cynical about in the aftermath of the inept occupation was how the US would occupy an area--but just as soon as they withdrew, the adversary would fill the hole. And this repeatedly happened but what did the Joint Chiefs do in response? Increase personnel? No. So what's the point of spending blood and treasure to gain territory, just to see it fold like a cheap suit?
There's an obvious link to what Dr. Ashford says about David Friedman and some of my most recent pieces. I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, but the discussion of private workarounds to state functionality is intriguing. I remember in my computer timesharing days we were used as workarounds to cumbersome bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Political Humor
"It's not such a great day for fans of the game show "Jeopardy," which is everybody. Alex Trebek says he may retire at the end of the season. Trebek says he wants to spend more time at home, arrogantly correcting his family." - Craig Ferguson
[Trebek: "It's time for Double Jeopardy; our categories are 'Worst Supreme Court Decisions'...." BUZZ!
Me: "What is 'Blueford v Arkansas'?"
Trebek: "Yes, that is correct for $400. Next time, Dr. Guillemette, please first wait for me to read the clue."]
"Next week Mitt Romney will campaign in Las Vegas with Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich. Did somebody say “The Hangover, Part III?” - Jimmy Fallon
[Rick Perry wanted to show up, too, but Mitt Romney is still looking to collect on that $10,000 bet.]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Kinks, "Lola"
