Just choose WHICH "controversy" you would like to have taught in our government schools:
Can you identify each Controversy?
This would make a fun poster or card to hand out around town, wouldn't it?
Tell 'em Mac sent you!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Teach the Controversy? Hey--teach THESE controversies while you're at it, Buddy!
Now THIS is hysterical -- get your Teach the Controversy T-Shirts!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Why they chose '$700 billion' for the bailout
How the feds chose $700 billion as the amount they'd ask for to bail out the US economy has been bugging some people--especially after officials were quoted as saying, "It's not based on any particular data point," and "It sounded like a really large number." Which makes it sound like they are idiots pulling numbers out of their asses.
But I have another explanation as to why they choose that amount: because they wanted to charge into battle with overwhelming force.
If you're going to stop the greatest financial panic we've seen in our lifetimes, you don't do it by being coy. It's critical that you show up with an amount of cash that not only IS large enough to do the job, but SEEMS large enough to do the job--and then some.
So you pick the largest plausible number you can think of -- you want the reaction from the market, "Wow, $700 billion! That's a HECK of a lot of money! That will SURELY be enough to do the job!"
You don't want them thinking you're nickle-and-diming at a critical time like this. You want to come in with an amount so stupendous that it shuts everybody up. And, you hope, makes the panic back off. That's why they chose that number--not based on a close analysis of how much they'd actually need and not a nickel more.
Whether it IS enough, you can only guesstimate; the outstanding mortgage market is something like $1.5 trillion, the current guessed-at value is something like $1.2 trillion, most of which is not at risk; so $700 billion certainly SOUNDS to economists like MORE than enough to do the job of buying up all at-risk mortgages.
It's such a large number that, I'm guessing the officials are hoping, THEY WON'T ACTUALLY SPEND that much in the long run, so they can proudly announce, in a year or so, that they "only" spent $400 billion, or $300 billion, or whatever. They'll look like heroes -- they galloped up with an overwhelming amount of money to save the day, and then came in under budget. Heroes!
Whether it will actually work that way, of course, nobody knows, mainly because when you throw that amount into a highly politicized shark tank, all kinds of things can go wrong, by which I mean every politically connected business (read: every one with a lobbyist in DC) will try to get a chunk of that money, preferably by selling the Feds assets, whether troubled or not, at a premium price. The Feds, I think, just hope that if they can just get the panic to stop, the financial system can reboot, and after that, everything else is merely a matter of waste and corruption -- which we can deal with better with an economy that's back at work.
And who knows, they might be right. I've heard lots of alternatives that would likely have worked and not cost so much and not enriched so many jerks (and I'll try to post some), but who listens to us libertarians?
--mac
But I have another explanation as to why they choose that amount: because they wanted to charge into battle with overwhelming force.
If you're going to stop the greatest financial panic we've seen in our lifetimes, you don't do it by being coy. It's critical that you show up with an amount of cash that not only IS large enough to do the job, but SEEMS large enough to do the job--and then some.
So you pick the largest plausible number you can think of -- you want the reaction from the market, "Wow, $700 billion! That's a HECK of a lot of money! That will SURELY be enough to do the job!"
You don't want them thinking you're nickle-and-diming at a critical time like this. You want to come in with an amount so stupendous that it shuts everybody up. And, you hope, makes the panic back off. That's why they chose that number--not based on a close analysis of how much they'd actually need and not a nickel more.
Whether it IS enough, you can only guesstimate; the outstanding mortgage market is something like $1.5 trillion, the current guessed-at value is something like $1.2 trillion, most of which is not at risk; so $700 billion certainly SOUNDS to economists like MORE than enough to do the job of buying up all at-risk mortgages.
It's such a large number that, I'm guessing the officials are hoping, THEY WON'T ACTUALLY SPEND that much in the long run, so they can proudly announce, in a year or so, that they "only" spent $400 billion, or $300 billion, or whatever. They'll look like heroes -- they galloped up with an overwhelming amount of money to save the day, and then came in under budget. Heroes!
Whether it will actually work that way, of course, nobody knows, mainly because when you throw that amount into a highly politicized shark tank, all kinds of things can go wrong, by which I mean every politically connected business (read: every one with a lobbyist in DC) will try to get a chunk of that money, preferably by selling the Feds assets, whether troubled or not, at a premium price. The Feds, I think, just hope that if they can just get the panic to stop, the financial system can reboot, and after that, everything else is merely a matter of waste and corruption -- which we can deal with better with an economy that's back at work.
And who knows, they might be right. I've heard lots of alternatives that would likely have worked and not cost so much and not enriched so many jerks (and I'll try to post some), but who listens to us libertarians?
--mac
Friday, September 26, 2008
An actually GOOD Presidential Debate!
I hate listening to candidate debates because I have to listen to the Democrats and the Republicans promote state action with nobody thinking to call them on anything.
But now I have found a Presidential Debate I can enjoy! Reason Magazine is hosting Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate who is, of course, excluded from the debates -- in a simulcast: He is sitting in a studio, broadcasting on the Web, with a TV showing the main debate and periodically Barr mutes the sound and gives HIS response.
Check it out at http://www.mogulus.com/reason !
Barr's answers are absolutely top-notch! This guy used to BE a Senator, don't forget; he knows stuff. He makes smart remarks, like saying McCain's foreign policies will make Bush look like a peacenik.
Worth watching!!!
But now I have found a Presidential Debate I can enjoy! Reason Magazine is hosting Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate who is, of course, excluded from the debates -- in a simulcast: He is sitting in a studio, broadcasting on the Web, with a TV showing the main debate and periodically Barr mutes the sound and gives HIS response.
Check it out at http://www.mogulus.com/reason !
Barr's answers are absolutely top-notch! This guy used to BE a Senator, don't forget; he knows stuff. He makes smart remarks, like saying McCain's foreign policies will make Bush look like a peacenik.
Worth watching!!!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
"The free market has nothing to do with the current financial crisis"
"Corporatism, Not Capitalism: The free market has nothing to do with the current crisis"
Reason Magazine, "Free Minds/Free Markets," says today (Sept 24, 2008):
There's nothing free market about the [US federal goverment] bailout [of the financial sector of Wall Street], writes Senior Editor Radley Balko. It's a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers.
Reason Magazine, "Free Minds/Free Markets," says today (Sept 24, 2008):
There's nothing free market about the [US federal goverment] bailout [of the financial sector of Wall Street], writes Senior Editor Radley Balko. It's a peculiar kind of corporatist socialism, where good risks and the resulting profits remain private, but bad risks and the resulting losses are passed on to taxpayers.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Uncle Jay explains our current financial crisis--as well as anyone!
If you haven't discovered the joys of watching Uncle Jay Explain the News each week, this is an excellent opportunity for you to start. Go to:
http://www.unclejayexplains.com/2008/09/21/uncle-jay-explains-the-news-sept-22-2008/
and Uncle Jay will explain financial crisis, in an episode that does every bit as good a job as anything you've watched on CNN in the past few days, or are likely to hear from the nearest politician!
Uncle Jay explains the news "to little minds," by which, I foolishly thought for a brief while, he meant kids. Nope.
http://www.unclejayexplains.com/2008/09/21/uncle-jay-explains-the-news-sept-22-2008/
and Uncle Jay will explain financial crisis, in an episode that does every bit as good a job as anything you've watched on CNN in the past few days, or are likely to hear from the nearest politician!
Uncle Jay explains the news "to little minds," by which, I foolishly thought for a brief while, he meant kids. Nope.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Believe It or Not, Here are 4 Presidents Who Were Even Worse Than Bush!
According to recent public opinion polls, only one third or fewer of those surveyed approve of President Bush's overall job performance. More startlingly, about one quarter consider George W. Bush to be the worst president in U.S. history. If these respondents took the time to look closer at other U.S. presidents, however, they might well rank them even lower than they rank Bush, as Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland suggests in his latest op-ed.
Eland offers a litany of costly mistakes, bad precedents, and unconstitutional abuses by previous U.S. presidents. James Polk, for example, lied to get Congress to declare a war to grab land from Mexico. William McKinley permanently expanded the president's power at the expense of Founder's vision of the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government, and he also turned the anti-colonial United States into a colonizer in the Philippines and in other lands formerly occupied by Spain. Woodrow Wilson plunged the country into World War I and helped set in motion a chain of causation that would lead to World War II. In addition, writes Eland, "Wilson's violations of civil liberties during World War I were the worst in U.S. history and make Bush's look fairly mild." Harry Truman enshrined Wilsonian interventionism, permanently burying the traditional U.S. foreign policy of military restraint. Eland also takes Truman to task for intentionally bombing civilians in World War II and the Korean war, unconstitutionally fighting the Korean War without a formal declaration, laying the groundwork for the first large permanent peacetime army in U.S. history, and more.
"Make no mistake," Eland concludes. "George W. Bush has been a horrible president and is one of the worst in U.S. history. But of the 42 men who have served as president, these four men--Polk, McKinley, Wilson, and Truman--were probably worse."
"Is George W. Bush the Worst President in U.S. History?" by Ivan Eland (9/13/08)
Also see, "To Make War, Presidents Lie," by Robert Higgs (10/1/2002)
"No More 'Great Presidents,'" by Robert Higgs (The Free Market, 5/1/97)
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed (Updated Edition), by Ivan Eland
Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, Director)
Eland offers a litany of costly mistakes, bad precedents, and unconstitutional abuses by previous U.S. presidents. James Polk, for example, lied to get Congress to declare a war to grab land from Mexico. William McKinley permanently expanded the president's power at the expense of Founder's vision of the balance of power between the three branches of the federal government, and he also turned the anti-colonial United States into a colonizer in the Philippines and in other lands formerly occupied by Spain. Woodrow Wilson plunged the country into World War I and helped set in motion a chain of causation that would lead to World War II. In addition, writes Eland, "Wilson's violations of civil liberties during World War I were the worst in U.S. history and make Bush's look fairly mild." Harry Truman enshrined Wilsonian interventionism, permanently burying the traditional U.S. foreign policy of military restraint. Eland also takes Truman to task for intentionally bombing civilians in World War II and the Korean war, unconstitutionally fighting the Korean War without a formal declaration, laying the groundwork for the first large permanent peacetime army in U.S. history, and more.
"Make no mistake," Eland concludes. "George W. Bush has been a horrible president and is one of the worst in U.S. history. But of the 42 men who have served as president, these four men--Polk, McKinley, Wilson, and Truman--were probably worse."
"Is George W. Bush the Worst President in U.S. History?" by Ivan Eland (9/13/08)
Also see, "To Make War, Presidents Lie," by Robert Higgs (10/1/2002)
"No More 'Great Presidents,'" by Robert Higgs (The Free Market, 5/1/97)
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed (Updated Edition), by Ivan Eland
Center on Peace & Liberty (Ivan Eland, Director)
"A Conservative for Obama" editorial: Don't hate tax cuts, hate spending increases!
Someone sent me a copy of an essay published in September in the Dallas city magazine, Big D, in which the former publisher of the conservative National Review says he's going to vote for Obama because he's less likely to get us into a war than McCain, and Obama also shows glimmers of useful pragmatism.
Good essay. He's right about the Republicans not being conservatives in any helpful sense any more - or for a long time. I am not confident that the Democrats are a whit better, but still... He's not promoting the Demos, he's promoting Obama, and he makes a good case.
However, I hate the misreading of the value and meaning of tax cuts -- first, we are not in debt because of the tax cuts -- the improvement in the economy since then generated more money for the government than projections had it earning before the cuts. Second, we are in debt because we are spending even more, if that is possible, than ever before - much, much more. Much of that on the war, but equally profligate in every other area Washington touches. There is simply no amount of tax money that will pay the bill when the politicians hold the credit cards. Just try asking a politician or a tax-eating special interest how much is enough? You'll never get a useful answer--because enough is all of it. There will never be enough money to satisfy them. Every increase in revenues is overmastered by a bigger increase in spending - whether in war or peace, in crisis or in flush times.
Third, if the economy is indeed staggering at this time, the worst thing on earth is to increase taxes -- not even on those awful, awful people, the "rich." JFK made this exact same argument while President, and then signed the largest tax cut since WWII - which was followed by the boom that helped define the economics of the 60s. The right thing to do, in reality, would be to cut marginal tax rates, especially where they will boost the economy most -- on the rich, on investment, on capital gains, on corporations. Yeah, I know -- all the devils of the modern world, what could I be thinking?
And then, of course, to cut government spending, which we should be doing even if revenues are up and even if we increase taxes. But we will never, in our lifetimes, have a budget of any level of government that goes down from one year to the next. Or even stays even. The most we can hope for is that a planned 20% increase will be held to, say a 12% increase -- whereupon we'll have to endure complaints that spending has been "slashed" 8% and how we are suffering!
Marlarky, baloney, bullshit. I weary of it.
But as he says, Obama is marginally less likely to invade someone, and might actually be a Kennedy type of character who would hesitate to kick the economy in the nuts, if he's really as "pragmatic" as this guy is hoping. We can all only hope.
McCain would be better, even with his lust for invasion, if only he were a real Republican conservative, who would cut taxes, reduce government impositions, reduce spending *somewhere, anywhere*, regulate less impulsively, and argue against government intervention in every aspect of human endeavor. But of course he's not a conservative in any of these areas, he's only, like all of his kind, a lifetime member of the Republican faction of the Politicians' Party.
So is Obama, though for a shorter lifetime, and so less embedded. A tiny flicker of nonpolitician hesitation would be a welcome relief at this point. Not to mention any little hope, however faint, that we won't try to play policeman or Superman to anyone outside our borders for the next four years.
But me, I'm voting Libertarian across the board. The heck with it. Maybe we'll get lucky and Obama will get the nod instead of McCain. But either way, I'm not voting for the Politician's Party this year either. Marginal variations in levels of oppression are welcome, but not worth my vote.
mac
Good essay. He's right about the Republicans not being conservatives in any helpful sense any more - or for a long time. I am not confident that the Democrats are a whit better, but still... He's not promoting the Demos, he's promoting Obama, and he makes a good case.
However, I hate the misreading of the value and meaning of tax cuts -- first, we are not in debt because of the tax cuts -- the improvement in the economy since then generated more money for the government than projections had it earning before the cuts. Second, we are in debt because we are spending even more, if that is possible, than ever before - much, much more. Much of that on the war, but equally profligate in every other area Washington touches. There is simply no amount of tax money that will pay the bill when the politicians hold the credit cards. Just try asking a politician or a tax-eating special interest how much is enough? You'll never get a useful answer--because enough is all of it. There will never be enough money to satisfy them. Every increase in revenues is overmastered by a bigger increase in spending - whether in war or peace, in crisis or in flush times.
Third, if the economy is indeed staggering at this time, the worst thing on earth is to increase taxes -- not even on those awful, awful people, the "rich." JFK made this exact same argument while President, and then signed the largest tax cut since WWII - which was followed by the boom that helped define the economics of the 60s. The right thing to do, in reality, would be to cut marginal tax rates, especially where they will boost the economy most -- on the rich, on investment, on capital gains, on corporations. Yeah, I know -- all the devils of the modern world, what could I be thinking?
And then, of course, to cut government spending, which we should be doing even if revenues are up and even if we increase taxes. But we will never, in our lifetimes, have a budget of any level of government that goes down from one year to the next. Or even stays even. The most we can hope for is that a planned 20% increase will be held to, say a 12% increase -- whereupon we'll have to endure complaints that spending has been "slashed" 8% and how we are suffering!
Marlarky, baloney, bullshit. I weary of it.
But as he says, Obama is marginally less likely to invade someone, and might actually be a Kennedy type of character who would hesitate to kick the economy in the nuts, if he's really as "pragmatic" as this guy is hoping. We can all only hope.
McCain would be better, even with his lust for invasion, if only he were a real Republican conservative, who would cut taxes, reduce government impositions, reduce spending *somewhere, anywhere*, regulate less impulsively, and argue against government intervention in every aspect of human endeavor. But of course he's not a conservative in any of these areas, he's only, like all of his kind, a lifetime member of the Republican faction of the Politicians' Party.
So is Obama, though for a shorter lifetime, and so less embedded. A tiny flicker of nonpolitician hesitation would be a welcome relief at this point. Not to mention any little hope, however faint, that we won't try to play policeman or Superman to anyone outside our borders for the next four years.
But me, I'm voting Libertarian across the board. The heck with it. Maybe we'll get lucky and Obama will get the nod instead of McCain. But either way, I'm not voting for the Politician's Party this year either. Marginal variations in levels of oppression are welcome, but not worth my vote.
mac
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