Joe Toscano forwarded this 1948 cartoon that is featured on the National Juggernaut site. There is more sense in it than in the entire City of Washington.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Socialism In Extremis: Greek Economy, Newsweek Head for Hades
In February 2009 Newsweek claimed that "we are all socialists now." Prime Minister George Papandreou and the Greek government could not help but agree. Now Newsweek is following Greece to socialist Hades.
Big Journalism.com reports that socialist Newsweek, following socialist Greece, is headed for bankruptcy:
"Despite staff cuts, Newsweek has remained a drag on its parent company (The Washington Post), which is also struggling with ad declines at its namesake newspaper...Newsweek is pretty much dead, and now the only question is who’s going to rouge the corpse for a few more years, if anybody, to keep its collection of Morning Joe talking heads with at least the fig leaf of meaningful employment before the final axe falls...At $5.95 per issue, Newsweek is hardly a bargain. Newsweek is your father’s magazine, and no amount of reinvention could fix that..."
I disagree. Were the editors of Newsweek more imaginative, they could have found a way to survive. Newsweek's unimaginative socialist ideology is matched by its unimaginative marketing strategy. Just as new media is re-conceptualizing the news, so might have the Democrats at Newsweek. Back in February 2009 I urged Newsweek to move to France. Perhaps Hades would have been a better bet.
Big Journalism.com reports that socialist Newsweek, following socialist Greece, is headed for bankruptcy:
"Despite staff cuts, Newsweek has remained a drag on its parent company (The Washington Post), which is also struggling with ad declines at its namesake newspaper...Newsweek is pretty much dead, and now the only question is who’s going to rouge the corpse for a few more years, if anybody, to keep its collection of Morning Joe talking heads with at least the fig leaf of meaningful employment before the final axe falls...At $5.95 per issue, Newsweek is hardly a bargain. Newsweek is your father’s magazine, and no amount of reinvention could fix that..."
I disagree. Were the editors of Newsweek more imaginative, they could have found a way to survive. Newsweek's unimaginative socialist ideology is matched by its unimaginative marketing strategy. Just as new media is re-conceptualizing the news, so might have the Democrats at Newsweek. Back in February 2009 I urged Newsweek to move to France. Perhaps Hades would have been a better bet.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Tax Increase or Gold Standard?
The Midas Letter (h/t Kitco) predicts that there will a bi-partisan consensus as to a massive tax increase following the midterm election this fall. This will harm the United States economy. Midas writes:
"Washington's elites are quietly preparing a post-election fiscal compromise that will fund much of President Barack Obama's domestic spending agenda with huge tax increases. They aim to create a value-added tax and will argue that there is no alternative even though doing so will leave the United States resembling the stagnant, bureaucratic nations of Western Europe."
This is only a prediction, of course, but would this scenario differ much from the history of the past 40 years? Ever since Richard M. Nixon abolished the gold standard and Ronald Reagan adopted Keynesian monetary expansion, both New-Deal policies, the Republicans have largely adopted a strategy of "Democratic Party light." Under Reagan the GOP held the line on domestic spending as a percentage of real gdp but did not begin to reduce total government spending until the end of the Cold War, following Reagan's departure. Thereafter, there was a small drop in total federal spending, which remained in the 16-18% of real gdp range until the end of the Bush II administration. In 2009, the Democrats once again proved to be the leaders in government bloat and expanded real spending by more than ten percent, to 20% of real gdp. President Obama should be renamed the Emperor of Bloat.
The 20% expansion of government spending as a percentage of real gdp directly followed the largest expansion of monetary reserves in living memory in 2008. Perhaps the expansion of the Continental during the Revolutionary War was comparable to the expansion of the monetary base two years ago. Obama then increased real domestic spending, in part through a painfully nonsensical "stimulus" plan. Although the Democratic Party's media has downplayed this, as of this month the unemployment rate is higher than it was last year on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. In other words, government has expanded, it has failed to reduce unemployment, and now new investment will be crowded out if the spending increases are validated through tax increases next year.
If the GOP goes along with any sort of tax increase now, and does not demand sharp spending reductions, it does not warrant any further support. A third party will be needed. Hopefully, this scenario will not play out. If the GOP stops further increases in government and proves that it aims to reduce government, it can redeem itself. But any sort of bi-partisanship with the pigs in the Democratic Party ought to spell the end of the GOP. A replacement party will be needed just as the GOP replaced the Whigs in the 1850s.
The Midas Letter suggests an alternative to a tax increase:
"The U.S. could return to a gold standard, a system that would not only prevent the government from running chronic budget deficits but would also curb attempts to manipulate the value of the dollar for political reasons... The first step...is an American commitment to a dollar convertible to gold on a date certain. The second step is allowing the market, in the run-up to that date, to find and fix a dollar price of gold that would encourage other nations to replace dollar reserves with gold holdings as their new monetary base, whether or not they choose initially to join the new international gold standard...Legislation restoring dollar-gold convertibility should be accompanied by passage of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the American people a right to conduct their economic affairs in gold, regardless of the future status of gold as the official money of the United States."
Which would you prefer--a massive tax increase, or a return to the gold standard? Write your Congressman, even if they're as incompetent and corrupt as mine.
"Washington's elites are quietly preparing a post-election fiscal compromise that will fund much of President Barack Obama's domestic spending agenda with huge tax increases. They aim to create a value-added tax and will argue that there is no alternative even though doing so will leave the United States resembling the stagnant, bureaucratic nations of Western Europe."
This is only a prediction, of course, but would this scenario differ much from the history of the past 40 years? Ever since Richard M. Nixon abolished the gold standard and Ronald Reagan adopted Keynesian monetary expansion, both New-Deal policies, the Republicans have largely adopted a strategy of "Democratic Party light." Under Reagan the GOP held the line on domestic spending as a percentage of real gdp but did not begin to reduce total government spending until the end of the Cold War, following Reagan's departure. Thereafter, there was a small drop in total federal spending, which remained in the 16-18% of real gdp range until the end of the Bush II administration. In 2009, the Democrats once again proved to be the leaders in government bloat and expanded real spending by more than ten percent, to 20% of real gdp. President Obama should be renamed the Emperor of Bloat.
The 20% expansion of government spending as a percentage of real gdp directly followed the largest expansion of monetary reserves in living memory in 2008. Perhaps the expansion of the Continental during the Revolutionary War was comparable to the expansion of the monetary base two years ago. Obama then increased real domestic spending, in part through a painfully nonsensical "stimulus" plan. Although the Democratic Party's media has downplayed this, as of this month the unemployment rate is higher than it was last year on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. In other words, government has expanded, it has failed to reduce unemployment, and now new investment will be crowded out if the spending increases are validated through tax increases next year.
If the GOP goes along with any sort of tax increase now, and does not demand sharp spending reductions, it does not warrant any further support. A third party will be needed. Hopefully, this scenario will not play out. If the GOP stops further increases in government and proves that it aims to reduce government, it can redeem itself. But any sort of bi-partisanship with the pigs in the Democratic Party ought to spell the end of the GOP. A replacement party will be needed just as the GOP replaced the Whigs in the 1850s.
The Midas Letter suggests an alternative to a tax increase:
"The U.S. could return to a gold standard, a system that would not only prevent the government from running chronic budget deficits but would also curb attempts to manipulate the value of the dollar for political reasons... The first step...is an American commitment to a dollar convertible to gold on a date certain. The second step is allowing the market, in the run-up to that date, to find and fix a dollar price of gold that would encourage other nations to replace dollar reserves with gold holdings as their new monetary base, whether or not they choose initially to join the new international gold standard...Legislation restoring dollar-gold convertibility should be accompanied by passage of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the American people a right to conduct their economic affairs in gold, regardless of the future status of gold as the official money of the United States."
Which would you prefer--a massive tax increase, or a return to the gold standard? Write your Congressman, even if they're as incompetent and corrupt as mine.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Could Mayor Michael Bloomberg Have Set the Times Square Bomb?
Prison Planet.com notes that Mayor Michael Bloomberg felt few compunctions about psychopathic-style lying with respect to the recent Times Square bomb. Knowing that the bomber is a Pakastani, Faisal Shahzad, Bloomberg told Katie Curic:
“If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something, it could be anything,”
Lying comes easily to Mayor Bloomberg. For example, he claimed that scores on student achievement exams improved, overlooking falsification of exam results. In one egregious case, Bloomberg played up the academic success of a particular high school, and when it was revealed that the achievement scores had involved cheating, Mr. Bloomberg never recanted his praise.
Given Mayor Bloomberg's recividist lying, one cannot help but suspect other kinds of deranged behavior. In particular, I can't help but wonder if it was Mayor Bloomberg who left the bomb. He is more associated with the tendency to tell whoppers than any opponent of the health care bill I know. As my friend used to say, "he who smelt 'er dealt 'er."
“If I had to guess 25 cents, this would be exactly that, somebody who’s homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something, it could be anything,”
Lying comes easily to Mayor Bloomberg. For example, he claimed that scores on student achievement exams improved, overlooking falsification of exam results. In one egregious case, Bloomberg played up the academic success of a particular high school, and when it was revealed that the achievement scores had involved cheating, Mr. Bloomberg never recanted his praise.
Given Mayor Bloomberg's recividist lying, one cannot help but suspect other kinds of deranged behavior. In particular, I can't help but wonder if it was Mayor Bloomberg who left the bomb. He is more associated with the tendency to tell whoppers than any opponent of the health care bill I know. As my friend used to say, "he who smelt 'er dealt 'er."
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