He who reigns within himself
and rules his passions, desires, and fears
is more than a king.
John Milton
Freudian Slip of the Day
According to the Chicago Tribune:
“Obama’s dead and the American auto industry is alive,” Quinn said before correcting himself to say “Osama bin Laden” is dead. “Guess I won’t use that one again,” the governor said.Yes, Governor Quinn confuses "Obama" with "Osama". But let's stop the spinning wheel:
- UBL is dead, but the Taliban who protected him in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 are still destabilizing the country. According to Just Foreign Policy, to date Obama is accountable for 1404 American fatalities vs. the 575 under Bush (just over 7 years)
- Yes, Ford and a number of foreign car companies making cars in America (e.g., Toyota, Honda, Nissan, etc.) were able to make it through the economic tsunami and its aftermath without exposing American taxpayers to billions in losses. Chrysler cost the American taxpayer $1.5B and GM-related losses for the taxpayer could exceed $25B. A number of companies have gone through bankruptcy without the intervention of the federal government manipulating the process on behalf of crony union interests.
One realizes that politics (and especially Presidential campaigns) are a dirty game, but the Democrats, instead of trying to make a case for Obama's second term, continue to push the envelope, in this case saying these words in a former slave state:
"Look at their budget and what they're proposing," Biden told the crowd in Danville, Virginia. "In the first hundred days (Romney's) going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street," Biden said. "They're going to put y'all back in chains."As a free marketer, I could only dream of a situation where the government stops meddling in areas beyond its core competencies. I don't want to save Big Banks from failure, and I believe that banking customers, by depending on government insurance on deposits, are not vested in choosing the "right" bank.
The fact is that banks have been regulated, at multiple levels (state, federal, etc.) and will continue to be even if Dodd N. Frankenstein is repealed. The banking industry has been regulated from the start in counterproductive ways; for example, banks for much of American history were not able to open up branches in different states. Banks were less able to diversify their business geographically and different sectors of the economy. In a free market, banks would attract customers with prudent lending, commensurate to the extent of its reserves, liquid and diversified. [Let me note here that if government bonds are part of the mix, banks have a vested interest in government revenues and spending.] We've had a federal -state banking system since the Civil War era National Banking Acts. Salerno discusses morally hazardous practices of government-sanctioned banking holidays and issuance of clearing house certificates from a quasi-cartel of NY national banks during subsequent once-per-decade panics, eventually resulting in the 1913 birth of the Federal Reserve, the nation's current central bank. Murphy then goes on to analyze Fed-era bank performance: "Using Krugman's own source, we find that the establishment of the Fed generated (a) the two worst panics in US history and (b) a string of panics that were on average more than twice as bad as the average panic from the pre-Fed era."
Keep in mind that FDR responded to Depression era bank failures with a banking holiday and creating the FDIC, yet more moral hazard on top of lender of last resort (as if prudently managed banks with liquid assets needed them!)--the result? Lower reserves; higher, riskier lending; more illiquid assets; limited liability for bad business decisions; implementation of a "too big to fail" concept. We have scalability of bank errors, already overwhelmed bank regulators, and industry consolidations with regulations a significant barrier to entry. Instead of addressing the limitations and failures of pervasive government regulation and scaling back moral hazard in the system, the Democrats have doubled down on the Fed's authority and added even more pushing-on-a-string costs and regulatory uncertainty on the system; all they manage to do is provide a competitive advantage to crony industry players able to game the new regulations.
The issue isn't (Obama/Biden's debunked myth of ) "laissez faire" banking. Laissez faire banking does NOT socialize credit risk. Rather, progressives are attempting to treat the symptoms, not the disease, and adding costs to a system at the expense of consumers and business.
Political Humor
It was 109 degrees today in Los Angeles. It was so hot today, Joe Biden was putting his foot in his mouth just to cool it off. - Jay Leno
[It's the hot air: Antonio Villaraigosa must have been talking to Governor Jerry Brown and the Obama reelection campaign again.]
President Obama visited a wind farm in Iowa. You know, just one wind farm with 50 turbines generates as much wind power as a single Joe Biden speech. - Jay Leno
[Obama next wants to capture energy from a magnetic moment resulting from his polarizing policies on Capitol Hill.]
According to a new poll, atheism is becoming more and more popular among Americans. God only knows why. - Jay Leno
[It turns out that Obama wasn't "The One" we've been waiting for...]
Biden has made too many mistakes for Obama and he's fed up. So today President Obama called Mitt Romney and asked Mitt if he would fire Biden. - David Letterman
[Romney gave Obama Donald Trump's phone number. Obama also told Romney, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a $15T loan today."]
Mitt Romney said he wants to cut funding for things like Amtrak and PBS, both of which are subsidized by the government. I don't like the idea of cutting funds for PBS. Things are bad enough already. One of the Muppets is living in a garbage can. - Jimmy Kimmel
[The Muppets heard that there's a lot of government waste...]
The White House just revealed that it brews its own beer, and President Obama drinks it when he goes out campaigning. And even more of it when Joe Biden goes out campaigning. - Jimmy Fallon
[There is the oldest question of the Obama Presidency: what came first--Joe Biden's speeches or Beer #44?
Obama proudly points to the new White House brewmeister an example of insourcing to grow new government jobs in the economy.]
I always enjoy Remy. I depart from Remy here on one point at the very beginning, because, as I've said many times in this blog, I disagree with a politically correct presentist cultural spin on marriage and family (marriage being a traditional institution for procreation within societal norms for self-preservation--clearly not relevant for same-gender relationships).
I would prefer that big-L libertarians focus their attention on negative liberty for adult relationships (which I support) instead of demanding positive rights for alternative relationships. In fact, I find it odd and contrarian that the big-L libertarians would embrace a positive rights approach (a bit of a slippery slope) or hype "changing views" on the subject, when libertarians have never accepted, say, popular opinion on basic individual rights issues like TSA searches violating human dignity or warrantless wiretaps. The bottom line is that fundamental rights do not require popular assent.
I find myself in the peculiar position as a never-married bachelor having to defend the traditional institutions of marriage and family. I have a serious concern with unintended consequences for arbitrarily changing institutions that have evolved over millenniums. If the government redefines marriage by fiat, it adds to a number of other counterproductive things in life I have had to make my peace with, e.g., the fact of President Obama (see the Serenity Prayer), but even if the government puts lipstick on a pig...
Marriage will always be between a man and a woman, period. If government redefines marriage, I'll simply consider the new "marriage" a domestic partnership or civil union.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Frankie Valli, "Grease"
