O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist.
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Dear Government: I'm Just Not Into You...
Guest Blog Post Comment: On Trump
I've been using the term "political whore" some time now. I see [prior commentator] gets it. ["I have had it with the professional political class that spreads their legs on any issue for cold, hard campaign cash."]
I don't quite get Trump. It's almost like a work--he's so cartoonish, I keep waiting for someone to pop up saying "Candid Camera". He'll go NOWHERE. Part of why Romney lost in 2012 was because he alienated Asian- and Latino-Americans with his anti-immigrant rhetoric--and Trump makes Romney look like a dove on immigration--Trump is positively radioactive. Do you really want a second 2-term reign of the Clintons? She's already pandering to Latinos after Trump's epic suicidal rant... How can anyone take this guy seriously? Can you count them--4 business bankruptcies? You want this guy in charge of the budget?
For me, I'm in Rand Paul's camp--but if you ask me who is the most electable Republican in the field, I would say right now it's Marco Rubio. He's got this JFK-like crazy charisma thing going for him--and makes Hillary look like the tired old pol she is, running on the same platform the Dems have been running on for 4 decades-plus.
Guest Blog Comment on Friedman and the Euro
Whereas I am indeed skeptical of any central bank's monopoly on money and artificial monetary unions/exchanges (consider Bretton Woods), it would be useful to compare/contrast the American union vs. the European union. I will point out Milton Friedman seemed to be more enthusiastic than a free marketer should be at manipulations of money supplies, including quantitative easing.
Guest Blog Comment on Marine Le Pen and the Greece Debt Crisis
For some reason, this blog seems to like Marine Le Pen, although her policies are quite leftist/Statist. Consider this quote from Bloomberg:
"FN [National Front] has a plan to fix the economy that in many ways resembles a leftist manifesto. Nationalizing banks, raising protectionist trade barriers, handing out cash to low-paid workers—they’re all part of the platform developed by Le Pen, 45, who took over leadership of the party two years ago from her father, FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen...Le Pen says France has been “left alone, naked” to face unchecked globalization. She wants France to leave the European Union and pull out of the euro currency so it can keep tight controls on imports while devaluing its currency “to relaunch exports and employment.” The FN platform calls for a 3 percent tax on all imports that would be used to give a €200 ($270) monthly bonus to the country’s lowest-paid workers.She also wants the government to play a stronger role in managing the economy—for example, by temporarily nationalizing banks and forcing them to “clean up” their practices. “We still believe in free markets,” she says." Yeah, right....
This comes from a Jesus De Soto piece at mises.org: "The Austrian Tradition of Support for Fixed Exchange Rates versus Monetary Nationalism and Flexible Exchange Rates...Until central banks are abolished and the classic gold standard is reestablished along with a 100 percent reserve requirement in banking, we must make every attempt to bring the existing monetary system closer to the ideal, both in terms of its operation and its results. This means limiting monetary nationalism as far as possible, eliminating the possibility that each country could develop its own monetary policy, and restricting inflationary policies of credit expansion as much as we can, by creating a monetary framework that disciplines as far as possible economic, political, and social agents, and especially labor unions and other pressure groups, politicians, and central banks...flexible exchange rates preclude an efficient allocation of resources on an international level, as they immediately hinder and distort real flows of consumption and investment. Moreover, they make it inevitable that the necessary real downward adjustments in costs take place via a rise in all other nominal prices, in a chaotic environment of competitive devaluations, credit expansion, and inflation, which also encourages and supports all sorts of irresponsible behaviors from unions." [From Hayek:] "I do not believe we shall regain a system of international stability without returning to a system of fixed exchange rates, which imposes on the national central banks the restraint essential for successfully resisting the pressure of the advocates of inflation in their countries....Stability of foreign exchange rates was in their eyes a mischief, not a blessing. Such is the essence of the monetary teachings of Lord Keynes. The Keynesian School passionately advocates instability of foreign exchange rates."..."Furthermore, it comes as no surprise that Mises scorned the Chicago theorists when in this area, as in others, they ended up falling into the trap of the crudest Keynesianism. In addition, Mises maintained that it would be relatively simple to reestablish the gold standard and return to fixed exchange rates: "The only condition required is the abandonment of an easy money policy and of the endeavors to combat imports by devaluation....Now what interests us is to note that the different member states of the monetary union completely relinquished and lost their monetary autonomy, that is, the possibility of manipulating their local currency by placing it at the service of the political needs of the moment. In this sense, at least with respect to the countries in the eurozone, the euro began to act and continues to act very much like the gold standard did in its day. Thus, we must view the euro as a clear, true, even if imperfect, step toward the gold standard."
Very interesting stuff, and I encourage readers to read the full piece. I threw up in my mouth a little when I heard this populist piece of work [Le Pen] talk about the "devastating austerity" and the "enslavement" of the Greeks by their creditors. The problems with Greece aren't with bankers; it has to do with a country passing the buck on an unsustainable government drag on the economy. If Greece exits the monetary union--and let me be clear: I'm cheering on the EU to keep the pressure on Greece and on its dysfunctional socialist government--it'll engage in the lose-lose battle of trade wars and devaluations.
As I noted above, Le Pen is little more than a right-wing authoritarian whose "faith" in the free market is much like George W. Bush's infamous sound bite which Tom Woods' podcast intro plays: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system".
Choose Life: Daddies and Their Babies
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Glenn McCoy via Townhall |
Musical Interlude, My Favorite Vocalists
Dionne Warwick, "Deja Vu"
