RAG Perspective: An American Pro-Liberty Conservative: Miscellany: 1/05/13

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Miscellany: 1/05/13

Quote of the Day
If people are good only because
they fear punishment,
and hope for reward,
then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Albert Einstein

Lightning Round

Pelosi Argues Debt Ceiling "Unconstitutional" As Well As Others. I dealt with this revisionist nonsense about the fourth section of the Fourteenth Amendment in yesterday's post. The intent was to ensure existing and any future US debt would be honored by current and future Congresses and Presidents. It is the responsibility of the Congress to budget and fund US government operations --including servicing the debt. It is the responsibility of the President to manage the government, efficiently and effectively--which Barack Obama has utterly failed to do by any objective standard. He is incompetent and unqualified in areas of administrative competencies; whereas it is true that a certain degree of managerial discretion is necessary, e.g., a key staffer goes on medical leave, and the Congress often constrains disbursements (e.g., military base closures), it does not mean a manager should perpetuate existing inefficiencies or misallocation of resources; if any necessary reforms require Congressional approval, a President should be proactive and show leadership.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said on Friday the Constitution not only allows Obama to bypass Congress on the debt ceiling — it compels him to.

“I think [the Constitution] is pretty clear. He must do something about paying the bills,” Udall said. “If Congress doesn’t give him an avenue to do that, a leader needs to take a course of action if the bills aren’t being paid. That could be devastating to our economy. It could be devastating to our reputation around the world."

The hypocrisy of this piece of work is palpable. First of all, we take in roughly $2.5T a year, and annual servicing of the debt is roughly in the range of $300B a year in part due to manipulated low interest rates; there is no logical reason why US creditors do not have first claim to federal income and hence the Constitutional argument is vacuous. (You know, Udall's hypocritical Chicken Little nonsense is particularly annoying after the Dems have deferred social security reform, noting even when the reserves are exhausted, we'll still have captive payroll taxes paying into program coffers. ) We have projected trillion dollar debts as far as the eye can see. We know that excess government spending has led to little or no GDP growth, that countries like Germany and Sweden resorted to austerity after the tsunami and have attained GDP growth past 3%; we know federal spending after WWII cratered, but the economy did not relapse into depression. (See here for another Barro essay.) We cannot continue to spend 40 cents on the dollar we don't have; this story does not end well. We have a huge bond bubble; Fed easy money policy continues to erode purchasing power of the dollar. We have over 60% of the budget in unsustainable entitlements, with tens of trillions in unfunded liabilities. This "President" (in name only) hypocritically opposed debt ceiling increases when he was a Senator, and the recent tax cliff deal involved nearly a 40-1 ratio of spending to growth-sapping upper income tax hike revenue. I would be taking a much harder stand than the Congressional GOP leadership: I think we need austerity and entitlement reforms sooner than later. Term-limited, Obama has an opportunity to fashion a grand bargain on the crown jewels of Democratic policies, senior entitlements.

Criticism of Hillary Clinton Inhumane? In response to Clinton guru James Carville, I would never vote for Hillary Clinton for President; I think the Obama foreign policy has been, at best, inconsistent, convoluted, and incompetent. Now I understand why some Congressional Republicans are suspicious on the long delay in Clinton's testifying before Congress involving the 9/11 Benghazi consulate attack. However, the speculation about Clinton's health issues is out of bounds; Clinton will have to testify sooner or later, and leaving the Administration does not preempt her eventual testimony. I'm sorry to hear about Clinton's recent concussion and dangerous blood clot; I wish her a speedy recovery
Another Urban Legend: The GOP "Caused" the Debt Downgrade and Is Holding the Economy Hostage.

Start with a problem: Congressional Republicans are hellbent on using another round of debt-ceiling brinkmanship to win the kind of sharp spending cuts they were denied in the fiscal cliff negotiations. Last time they played chicken with the U.S. economy, our debt was downgraded. Despite his vow not to let Republicans use our full faith and credit as a bargaining chip, there is no obvious way for Barack Obama to avoid it. Congress controls the power of the U.S. borrowing authority. Republicans control the House. Therefore they can prevent our debts from being paid, even though they rung up the debts themselves.

This has to do with the "trillion dollar" coin nonsense to pay down debt being pushed by economic illiterate and/or gadfly types as Congressman Jerry Nadler. Heidi Moore explains why the idea isn't feasible. But the idea that the Treasury could, against the wishes of Congress, mint a coin to define away the debt, when the Constitution clearly attributes coinage powers to the Congress, not the Executive Branch, and Carney rightly and convincingly argues this power cannot be delegated and hence would be unconstitutional. But is the emperor wearing clothes? Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution unambiguously states only the Congress shall have the power to borrow money on the credit of the US. Not the President. That's the reason Congress has to pass any relevant increase in debt in the first place. The US has already issued $16.4T in debt. If the government could simply define away the problem, there would be no reason to tax the people in the first place.

You would think that a progressive journalist like Altman would at least try to disguise taking the White House talking points. The entirely spurious charge that the GOP "caused" the downgrade is ludicrous; the only time over the past 50 years we've balanced the budget was in a GOP-controlled Congress during Clinton's second term. The Dems have controlled one or both chambers of Congress since 2006--and have incurred the largest deficits in US history. What caused our downgrade was excess spending and deficits, not a political negotiation. The US collected more money than needed to service the debt. The problem was that Obama was holding the US economy hostage by refusing to live within his means. Blaming the GOP as in the last line from Altman, once again straight from Obama, is ludicrous when the Dems control the Senate and have not passed their own budget in years and Obama threatens to veto streamlined budgets.

Is Rand Paul the Next POTUS? Maybe....

The evangelical/conservative news portal WND has a column based on a recent talk show interview with the junior Kentucky senator. I look at Rand Paul as a more pragmatic version of his dad, Ron Paul. To be honest, I would like to see him with more administrative experience, given the failed Presidency of another one-term senator, Barack Obama, but whereas one would argue Obama from a policy standpoint was indistinguishable from other contenders, Rand Paul is different from most GOP senators in areas like protecting liberty (e.g., the Patriot Act) and neo-con foreign policy. He will likely inherit his dad's fanatical, youth oriented base which paradoxically has crossover appeal against crony capitalism and the Fed, for anti-interventionist foreign policy, and for civil liberties. Unlike Romney, I think Rand Paul can and will run against the Bush/Obama spendaholic, domestic interventionist, foreign nation building record and to run on free market, free trade policies.

Recalling a Shameful Moment in US History

One of my client contacts in São Paulo, Brazil, was very tall (6'4") and of Japanese descent. He was not alone; there is a large (like over a million) number of Japanese Brazilians in the area.

My good friend and project manager Ray (not Japanese) would have eaten at sushi restaurants (not my thing) 7 days a week if I let him. I remember on one occasion he begged me to come, promising he would find a Japanese restaurant that cooked fish. I never acquired a taste for sake, which to my taste buds tasted like it had been fermented in old Army boots (not that I have a habit of drinking from old boots).

Released at the end of April, the book describes the first stage of immigration to Brazil – begun in 1908 and ending in 1941 when Japan entered World War II – as part of a peaceful expansion orchestrated by the Japanese government.

One of the greatest world powers at the time – with major business conglomerates such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo – Japan was simultaneously experiencing major economic problems with high unemployment and poverty in rural areas.

As a result, the country was facing criticism from several segments of society that did not agree with the way in which it had been developing, namely, conquering countries through military force as it had in the imperialist period, when it invaded Korea, Manchuria and part of China.

A number of Japanese emigrated for some of the same reasons as Europeans--conscientious objectors and/or better opportunities. What FDR did in his executive order was not only unconstitutional but morally outrageous; how historians rank FDR among the greatest boggles the imagination. Contrast the record of George W. Bush. whom spoke out against reprisals to Arab- or Muslim-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11. What I see below is a beautiful family whose unalienable rights of liberty and property were not protected by legitimate government.