I'm willing to admit that
I may not always be right,
but I am never wrong.
Samuel Goldwyn
Congratulations, Kenichi Ebina, AGT Winner 2013
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I supported the opera trio Forte, which ended up placing fourth. Mr. Ebina is a talented dancer, but I'm not into dancing, my being mediocre at best. (I think the last time I tried to dance was with my then 5-year-old niece Emily at a family function Yes, her little feet survived the experience...)
Guest Quotation of the Day
"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -James Madison
(HT Andrew Napolitano)
Tweet of the Day
A fine is a tax for doing wrong; a tax is a fine for doing well. - Dan Thomas via Brit Hume
Obama Economic Illiteracy Watch
Yes, The (Spendthrift) One really did say this:
"Now, this debt ceiling -- I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up -- raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress. It's a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."All The Disingenuous One is saying is that raising a credit limit is not the same as passing spending bills larger than underlying federal revenues. But an effective manager, unlike Obama, knows how to live within a budget, his resources, i.e., federal revenues. Obama pretends that he has no choice but to spend money he doesn't have, that money-losing projects and operations must be allowed to continue, that redundant operations or manpower are contractual commitments, and he is little more than a passive paymaster forced to carry out all the Congress' wasteful spending--but he's the deadbeat signing the spending into law, knowing tax revenue is insufficient. That this piece of work is trying to pass off blame for overspending on Congress when a competent executive would veto those spending bills to hell and tell the Congress to go back to the drawing board and make the rightsize spending choices and not rip off future generations. Obama is part of the problem, not the solution; he should man up and not try to weasel out of his share of responsibility and blame.
But he has no scruples about intervening in Syria, Libya, and other countries, spending millions if not billions of money that he doesn't have, for actions funded by his mere fiat.
You need to act like a leader, Obama; stop trying to obfuscate the issue. The very fact that you admit that the Congress has had to raise that debt ceiling over 100 times is an indictment of BOTH the Congress and the President, but stop misleading the American people: when you became President, a large percentage of the debt was reserves for entitlements, e.g., future spending for social security. On your watch, social security is already running at a deficit, and you haven't done a damn thing to address the problem. Even worse, you have more than doubled the publicly held debt on your watch, and once again, you have failed to take the initiative to address the problem, instead kicking the problem down the road, just like failed European leaders....
San Juan Capistrano Bans Flip-Flops at Parks:
Will Democratic Politicians Be Next? One Can Only Hope....
That's all California needs: law enforcement officials with a foot fetish.... Apparently city lawyers are worried about city liability from malfunctioning footwear: flip at your own risk What's next--open-toed sandals, 4-inch heels? Not sure if this ban includes public policy speeches from John Kerry or Barack Obama.
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
The anti-Walmart DC "living wage" law is dead. As I had cautiously predicted, Mayor Gray vetoed the measure, and the veto override failed to achieve the necessary super-majority. Of course, the DC "progressives" haven't given up on economically illiterate/counterproductive policies and are next targeting the more universally-applicable minimum wage (surprise, surprise: as Don Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek would say, who'd a-thunk it?). No word yet on whether Walmart will reinstate their original target of 6 new DC area stores.
Lyin' Eyes
Bernanke Channels Saint Augustine:
At ego adulescens miser ualde, miser in exordio ipsius adulescentiae, etiam petieram a te castitatem et dixeram, 'Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo.'
("But I, frail man, a young man of good sense, a wretch, in the beginning of his youth, even begged chastity of Thee, and I had said, 'Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.')
Closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments in coming months and will continue its purchases of Treasury and agency mortgage-backed securities, and employ its other policy tools as appropriate, until the outlook for the labor market has improved substantially in a context of price stability.Once again, the currency debasers are kicking the can down the road; notice how government involvement in anything has a distorting effect on the economy: healthcare, the finance sector, etc. Technically, the Federal Reserve is private, but it's quasi-governmental, delegated authority from Congress a century ago, and a few decades ago Congress, in a moment that can only be described as sheer madness, added a full-employment mandate to the traditional price stability mandate. Of course, the Fed can't print jobs; it can influence the cost of capital, but there are a number of other constraints that factor in business decisions, including public policy, existing debt load, labor availability, competitive factors, inventory, industry capacity, consumer income, etc. But look at the chart below: of course, economists focus on the median vs. average income (Russ Roberts discusses this concept in multiple Econtalks); notice the figures are adjusted for inflation/price-level changes. There are a couple of facts most readers should be able to pick out: first, median income has stagnated since the 1980's; second, upper-income workers have also lost some ground during the past decade. (For example, consider, even without price adjustments, the Nasdaq has not made up lost ground from its peak in the 2000-2002 meltdown. Of course, the upper-income earners are still much better off, but it doesn't fit the leftist zero-sum story.) The point is, of course, for all that easy money policy over the past generation, we've had little more than sub-par economic/job growth to show for it. And I think the Fed is creating nasty little bubbles, including high levels of margin debt pushing up the stock market, even with moderating profits. I keep thinking an analogy some readers might find nauseating: you know, sometimes half the battle in feeling nauseous is fighting off the urge to vomit; yet once you finally give it up, you are almost relieved. Sooner or later, the Fed needs to take off the training wheels, and let the invisible hand of the free market determine the natural equilibrium of interest rates. The economy bounced back from bank panics and depressions even before the Fed came to be. But holding interest rates below inflation is madness that punishes lenders while rewarding debtors, a morally corrupt policy.
 |
| Courtesy of Investment Newsletter |
Tyler Cowen and the Singapore Medical Model
I haven't added the Marginal Revolution blog to my blogroll yet, but I've generally enjoyed Cowen's appearances on Econtalk. On one of his appearances he discussed the Singapore model which consists of a fusion of single-payer catastrophic and medical savings accounts for handling routine health expenses; he discusses it in the context of ObamaCare and likely future evolutions here. Granted, this is not a libertarian's dream in terms of centralizing catastrophic coverage (or even implicitly subsiding savings accounts), but given the dubious financial integrity of government health programs, I see this as an infinitely superior alternative to the incoherent, unsustainable government programs (Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare). I've talked about a catastrophic plan, funded by a VAT--which Cowen also briefly discusses in an alternate context. I have written my own comments without being aware of Cowen's position, but almost everything he says here, including the unsustainable nature of Obamacare is so spot on it's like having a kindred spirit on the topic..... Highly recommended read. Yes, he thinks the likelihood of our preferred public policy is unrealistic; I hope we can make it politically viable.
Political Humor
USA Today had a front-page feature on the new healthcare law. It said that the opposition to Obamacare at an all-time high. It has gotten so bad that the president is now calling it "Bidencare." - Jay Leno
[Obama agrees that it's a f---ing big deal.]
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which sparked the
[The economic tsunami (the Fed raised interest rates one too many times to start the recession in 2007). Not to mention high gas prices, the Democrats still complaining about income inequality, we still have over $40T in unfunded entitlement liabilities, and Barack Obama is still campaigning...]
Political Cartoon
 |
| Courtesy of Henry Payne and Townhall |
Boyz II Men, "I'll Make Love To You"
