The secret of being boring is to say everything.
Voltaire
We Owe It To
Keynesian government spending is merely a self-congratulatory rationalizing what almost any politician wants: an excuse to spend money they don't have to bribe voters and/or supporters. Well, what about all that debt? The Krugman response is no problem: we owe it to ourselves.
Mazorra explains: it matters. The argument goes like this: foreign investors would never buy dollars unless dollars could buy American goods and services. And production of those goods and services requires investment. Dollars servicing the national debt and government operations are not available. But, in fact, almost a third of the national debt is held by foreigners. Foreign purchases of dollars, say by China buying dollars to maintain their peg, ostensibly to support cheap/cheaper exports to America, must be spent or invested in America (in the long run)--a lot of it bidding for government debt--basically raising the price of bonds, lowering interest.. If the demand for dollars slumped internationally, the reverse would happen: in a more limited market, the Treasury would need to increase interest rates to attract investors. This would also have an adverse effect on the private sector: their rates would increase also (government debt is considered safer, so companies would have to pay more to accommodate the higher risk); this would increase business costs and probably trigger a recession.
I love Mazorra's description of Krugman's "virtuous" cycle, basically an excuse for politicians to pay off chits to crony supporters:
Note: I know there’s a reader out there who reads Paul Krugman, and who would, therefore, argue that during a recession—or even a period of slow-growth—investors are not investing, their money sits idle. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, for government to take that money off their hands (borrow it from them) and put it to use. Fund some projects, create some activity that the marketplace does not presently demand. Let’s stimulate the housing and auto sectors, invest in education, buy some beef, pave something. Essentially skipping past the rough patch by getting that money off the shelf and into the hands of beneficent bureaucrats. Let them determine where the growth is to come from.Facebook Corner
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| Via LFC |
(Libertarian Republic). Is the libertarian era upon us? (VIDEO) http://bit.ly/IzaPUJ
Interesting thread and discussion. I think some things have changed: Congress is deeply unpopular, I think younger voters are aware that the past generation of Presidents and Congresses have dug them into a big hole and sooner or later there will be a day of reckoning, and "progressive" programs often make things worse, not better. The problem is that conservatives and libertarians cannot win by playing bad cop, without a positive vision for government; for good or bad, many people are counting on senior entitlement programs, and they don't like uncertainty in public policy; government has become so big, many lack faith in the "invisible hand" or what happens in the vacuum of no government. The GOP will not win if Dem fear-mongering puts them on the defensive. limited to only minor symbolic tweaks of budgets and programs. (There are approaches that politicians could take--for instance, government program decentralization/sustainability, privatization, downsizing/simplification, liberalized asset management/sales, etc.)
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| Courtesy of the original artist via LFC |
Time for troll stomping!
Yeah, unregulated capitalism would rock! Until it kills you
Idiotic troll. Monopolistic government kills you with mistaken address drug raids, foreign military adventures or delays in life-saving drugs or treatments (and I'm just getting started)!
No required safety for workers or consumers. No requirement for safety information. No requirement for food handling. No requirement for drug companies to list side effects. No requirement for drug testing. etc etc etcThe economic illiteracy of progressive trolls is staggering! Try recruiting workers or selling drugs if you have a reputation for scrimping on safety. Lawyers would also have a field day. You could have independent audits (government didn't invent audits). The private sector can do anything the public sector is doing, only cheaper, better and faster.
Man Arrested After Tossing $1,000 To Mall Shoppers (VIDEO) | The Libertarian Republic http://bit.ly/1byVvUV
Apparently no crime when "progressive" politicians throw good money after bad on failed government programs. But if a man tries to emulate Helicopter Ben Bernanke, it's a crime...
(Libertarian Republic). In a sense, the real argument between the foreign policy neoconservatives and libertarians is whether or not it's the responsibility of the U.S. military to police the world so as to ensure the safety of shipping lanes that contribute to world trade. Do you believe it's America's job to ensure trade can pass unmolested? Or do corporations bear that security risk on the high seas on their own?
Corporations and other businesses provide security even though they are taxed to help pay for public safety/national defense, while other nations freeload off our high cost defense of the seas. I'm sure that private security companies would enter into contracts with shippers, in part with cash flow from reduced taxes. I'm a believer in user fees and look at the Navy's protection of shipping as a taxpayer subsidy of commerce, which should be a part of the cost of doing business. Personally, I would like to see any international effort decentralized to regional control since global trade is a win-win proposition.
(Libertarian Republic). Amish Family Flees United States To Avoid Mandatory Chemotherapy For Daughter | The Libertarian Republic http://bit.ly/1b6FlPU
I'll have to disagree with others on this issue. The real issue is the girl's life, which others in this thread would give parents power to override her best chance of survival. Her parents do not have medical competency. I don't doubt that chemotherapy is unpleasant or the parents' love for their daughter. I expect no one in this thread would be defending the parents if they had been physically abusing or starving their child. Treating the child to this Homeopathic nonsense is like sentencing her to death.
[In the interest of fairness, I subsequently asked a wife of a good friend whom is a cancer survivor; she swears by Homeopathic treatments for more recent health issues and is angry with the article's description of Homeopathic treatment as little better than a placebo. She claims if cancer ever recurred, God forbid, that she would seriously have to think about whether to do chemo again. She had a relative whose death she attributes to the toxic effects of chemo. She thought that it was admirable for the couple to have gone along with at least an initial treatment of chemo and is furious that the courts overrode parental rights. No doubt that she would disagree with my opinion; I promised friends and family that I would not identify them in the blog, but let me say that I have the rightest regard for this couple. The friend was a UH office mate, a fellow doctoral student whom later taught for several years in Kentucky; he used to drub me regularly at racquetball. If I was ever to head my own MIS department (in academia or the professions--like me, he is out of academia), he's the first guy I would try to hire, period. He and his wife invited me to family dinner multiple times. The salt of the earth; great kids, too.
I will say as a non-parent and with no occurrence of cancer in my extended family (my maternal grandmother died from complications of colon cancer when I was a toddler), I really haven't done a lot of research on cancer, chemotherapy and/or homeopathy. But here's what I've found on the American Cancer Society website:
Homeopathy is based on the idea that if large doses of a substance cause a symptom, very small doses of that same substance will cure it. Homeopathic remedies are water-based or alcohol-based solutions containing tiny amounts of naturally occurring plants, minerals, animal products, or chemicals...While homeopathy appears to be safe, available published studies do not show that homeopathic remedies are effective in treating cancer. A few studies in humans suggest that they might help with some of the side effects of cancer or its treatment, but other studies show little or no effect.This comes from a science blog post discussing chemotherapy:
What needs to be understood is that chemotherapy is very good for some things. For instance, it’s very good for treating and curing leukemias and lymphomas. For certain cancers, such as breast and colorectal cancer, it’s very good at decreasing the chance of relapse after curative surgery. When given before curative surgery, chemotherapy can also make organ-preserving surgery possible.]
Political Humor
(HT Carpe Diem; apparently this video has been viral but it's the first I've seen it.)
Musical Interlude: My iPod Shuffle Series
Newsong, "The Christmas Shoes". I've thought about writing a follow-up song tentatively called "Christmas Mother"/"Christmas Angel", from the perspectives of the widower or his son. For example, the boy notices how heartbroken his father is, how he doesn't smile or play anymore, and he prays for God to send a special angel to heal his heart and restore his smile.
The song is the title track of a the first in a trilogy of 3 made-for-TV/cable flicks. The young man, Nathan Andrews, grows up and becomes a doctor. Probably my favorite of the series is "The Christmas Hope". A social worker and her airline pilot husband lost their only child in an auto accident; Nathan Andrews was present when the son was admitted to the hospital and soon died. The mother (Patty Addison) is despondent, blaming her husband because the son was driving home to accommodate the father's work schedule. Emily, a 9-year-old, is the child of a single mother, waitress and aspiring singer, but the mother dies in an auto accident, and Addison takes charge of Emily, eventually taking her in her own home to spend the approaching holiday. I don't want to give away the plot; I've already caught it once on Lifetime this holiday season. Recommended.
