A Politico/Allstate poll at the end of last year suggested 79% of Americans support his stimulus plan and he has a 63% approval rating.
A year from now, when those who saved see the value of those saving buying a great deal less, and those who did not save see the empty shops and find themselves out of a job, will they see the sheer folly of expecting the state to manipulate the economy back to health? Perhaps they will.
Classical liberals and libertarians are often accused of being ‘utopian’ because of our reliance of the self correcting mechanism of markets. “That assumes people act rationally!” our critics say.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We know people do not act rationally, oh good grief you statists have no idea how profoundly we know that, and that is exactly why we do not trust the state to have so much power over the domestic life of its subjects. Amongst other things, a strong state, far from protecting us from mean old Big Business, actually entrenches Big Business and lets them limit competition.
People are not particularly rational, even less so in large groups… and that includes people with great political power. They make mistakes and then repeat those mistakes again and again and again. The true utopians are those who think it is wise to give demonstrably fallible people vast legal backed power over civil society.
But hey, if you clever and oh so rational statists do not get the results you expect from the ‘stimulus package’, just strap in and do it again… and again… and again. Have fun. This is indeed the end of an era, just not the one you think.
What 79% of Americans want apparently. Enjoy.
Maybe the US National Anthem can be changed to “Ride the Lightning”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1pO77cFQ5Q
I found this article on macroeconomics amusing, and its title accurate, although others, including the Austrian economists, have dealt with scientism.
When the newsbimbos, the babbling boobs, and putative business backers all approve inculcated insanity, what’s the average voter to think? The percentage easily swayed is very likely around 70%; at least this is the proportion of voters in MA who fell prey to the advertising blitz by sleazy unions last November.
When one of these Seventy Percenters complains about any of the things they’ve brought down upon their own heads, as they already are, I’ll be inclined to tell them that they voted for bigger government, they are getting bigger government, and they should be happy, down on their knees kowtowing, grateful to their carificent keepers for it. After all, presumably they’re not cowards; it is just for cowards to reap their condign rewards. And if they voted that way out of utter stupidity, they should have faith in the fact that things could seem far worse — if only!
The new BOss is already telling us that things will get worse before they will get better, but is not mentioning that, praise be to him, things are more likely to get worse before they get worse, too. We might not have Smoot-Hawley to strangle the economy, but that craggy economic graph of the 1930s sure is depressing. (I suspect that a breakdown in trade, whether due to banditry or to edict, is a significant cause of the collapse of civilizations in hostile settings; at least, the Hittite and Roman empires both followed that course. I wonder if monetary confusion could result in such a breakdown.)
“A Politico/Allstate”
Oh good an insurance company taking a poll on whether insurance companies get a bailout.
I think this is more accurate:
“CNN poll: 61% oppose releasing second half of TARP money”
(Link)
FWIW I intended the nonce word “carificent” above to be evocative of, if not distantly akin to, caring, and to be a pun between making things dear and making (i.e. bringing about) things that are held to be dear.
I always thought that markets work because people (by and large) do act reasonably- provided that they act independantly and have an interest in a good outcome. Thats what markets mostly produce. However if people decide their actions by what other people are doing you get a bubble, people acting as a mob, and mobs are usually irrational. Of course politicians are past masters at persuading people that “everyone’s in favour, all the clever people approve”, thus creating a mob from among a large number of people.
Of course, bubbles always burst.
Getting what you wished for is the hardest lesson.
Pat- and bubbles are also created by inflationary monetary policy. By inflating a bank’s reserves and allowing it to artificially extend more credit, it allows people to artificially buy more, which causes prices to artificially rise because of the increased demand, causing more people to invest in the bubble hoping to make a return. It keeps growing until it pops because it’s not sustainable.
And while people are not always rational, the glory of the free market is that if they’re not, they suffer the consequences, not everyone else.
The free market is a system that says “You shouldn’t be forced to suffer for someone else’s irrationality!”
No, markets do not requite people to be rational, just self interested, However I did not mean to say people only act irrationally, just that at times some people are irrational, and markets are a better way of deciding what is and is not irrational… and markets are a better way of dealing with irrationality.
Why? Because without a central power imposing irrational acts on everyone (i.e. the current situation), everyone is rarely irrational at the same time and moreover the consequences of irrational actions are usually far less severe when the actor does not have the literal power of life and death over millions of people.
I am all for the state being there to protect against genuine collective threats, such as foreign invasion, infections plagues and (to some extent) law courts to sort out disputes when the alternative is people shooting it out… but there are bloody few other things that states are a better solution to than markets.
Way I see it, won’t be long till the new administration will pull out the old ‘bread and circuses’ trick. And it will work magnificently.
Sad, that.
Actually no, not this time. Timing, ah yes, timing is everything… the jackasses can ‘stimulate’ the economy until the entire world stinks of burning hair, when unemployment hits double digits and the whole system is clearly coming apart, even the dipshits who keep voting these people in will start to realise things do not work the way they thought they do.
When the pain starts getting spread around, this year, not some indeterminate time in the future, that is when things can change if the alternative view gets shouted loud and long enough.
“…Here comes sparky!”
One of the hardest parts of being a parent is accepting the fact that your children, regardless of the good advice and warnings you gave over the years, will make any number of mistakes that could have been avoided if they had only listened.
And the corrollary to that heartache is the ensuing realization that they will have to suffer some uncomfortable, even painful, consequences.
Some, perhaps rich, powerful, or influential, attempt to shield their little darlings from the splatter when the poop hits the fan. Most of us simply cry ourselves to sleep for a few, or many, nights, unable to offer more than our sympathy and continuing support.
The country that I truly love, for all its flaws and faults, is on a path that I am convinced will lead to very bad things in the future. The people, of whom I am a member both by birth and by desire, will undoubtably suffer some very serious consequences to their lives and fortunes.
And, beyond any doubt, we will deserve every bit of it.
I sometimes feel akin to Cassandra, forever warning of danger, and being ignored. A great sadness, and, paradoxically, also a growing determination, is the resultant emotional/psychological condition in which I find myself.
Sadness because it is overwhelmingly clear that the road to perdition has been too far travelled to avoid the inevitable crash.
A strengthened determination to do all that I can to clearly identify the actors and their faults, and by not allowing the cause and effect sequences to be blanked out once again, to fulfill my duty, as both a citizen and a father, to show both my fellows and my children the reality of the errors and mistakes that are being currently touted as “our salvation”.
But, as has been demonstrated so many times and so many ways over the past few centuries, our only true hope of salvation is that found in the protection and expansion of individual rights and liberties.
Therefore, I cannot despair. I cannot surender the field to those who work so ceaselessly to abridge and curtail the depth and breadth of our possibilities as independent men and women.
From the moment I drew my first screaming breath, I was a free man, thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of those who went before me, striving many times against impossible odds to pass on the greatest legacy any child has ever been bequeathed.
I am beholden, therefore, and my duty is clear.
Perry,
… that is when things can change if the alternative view gets shouted loud and long enough.
Unfortunately, not so. The worse things get the less capable people become of rational thought, and the more mob-like they become. It is the other side of follow-my-leader in a bubble.
They’ll start burning witches before they adapt. Anatole Kaletsky was actually advocating ‘punishing’ savers the other day. A recipe for a return to the Dark Ages with wealth converted to physical valuables, hoarded and hidden.
I thought you made you’re point very well in this- you took the words out of my fingertips.
But what can I say? Americans want their historic president. Screw thinking things through, Oprah likes him.
The dynamic becomes ‘anti-incumbent’, whoever that might be. First comes the euphoria… The One will be get his living beatification tomorrow. Outstanding. It will make the other side UTTERLY deaf to criticism for years at a very rare juncture in time when the gap between action and consequence will be almost instant.
Just wait a few years. After the euphoria comes the puzzlement that reality is not bending to The Will. Then comes the disillusionment. The sheer outrage and sense of betrayal that that The One could not part the Red Sea/pull the sword out of the stone/manage a Triumph of the Will over profane reality, etc. etc. will be a wonder to behold.
All it will require is a meaningful opposition with clear blue water between them and the Democrats. And that is why Inauguration Day would be a great time to start the Republican Party ripping itself apart by angrily ejecting anyone who supports the Bail Outs and making the party worth a Tinker’s Damn.
They need to let the Democrats do their worst because (a) they cannot stop them (b) never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake… and so they bloody well need to get the massive surgery on themselves out of the way in the next 4 years.
Interesting times.
Perry, JP,
I really don’t know which of you are right… I disagree with Perry on bash the incumbent being a default response. Apparently Labour are holding in over here on 32% in the poles which given their dismal record on everything is astonishing. OK, I’ll admit iDave hasn’t put clear blue water between him an Broon or indeed articulated any sort of coherent vision whatsoever but Labour at 32% is remarkable.
But I do think that there will be major outbreaks of Obama Dissapointment Syndrome edging into it’s terminal form Obama Betrayal Complex. Unfortunately, I think the folks who will siffer most from these dread maladies will be the hard-core of Obama supporters – the extreme utopian left who are frankly a lost cause anyway. Most centrist suffers will still be suffering from the similar BDS which innoculates against ODS like cowpox for smallpox. Basically the centre will cut Obama a lot of slack. His hard-core will see some epic fallings-out.
I hope your analysis is correct Perry but I’m edging toward’s JP’s prognostications of doom. I’m no exconomist but everything done about the “credit crunch” by our Lords and Masters seems completely arse over tit. I mean… Isn’t it the case that the whole problem started with an orgy of credit? In that case Mr Kalatsky’s advice seems deranged. I mean a sensible person who finds himself tap-dancing on custard gets off the custard rather than tap-dancing ever faster in an effort not to sink in. I mean I guess you can do it for a while but eventually, exhausted, even Roy Castle would submerge beneath the yellow stuff.
Or are the pols playing a desperate game of “pass the fizzing bomb” and fiddling around so that when it goes bang the other guys are holding it.
I apologise for my appalling metaphors but as I said. I’m no economist.
Only IF there is a credible opposition.
No it is not remarkable. THAT is why the Tories are worthless because not only are they an intellectual void, they commit the ultimate crime of any political party, they are completely shit at politics. McCain’s defeat in the USA and Labour’s survival in the UK are a clear direct unambiguous result of ‘lesser evil’ politics.
Gordon Brown has so many chinks in his armour he should change his name to Gordon Wong… civil liberties could be a huge stick to beat him with and well as truly presenting the bleeding heart Guardian readers with a googly, and does Cameron do that? Fuck no. In fact he abominated David Davies for actually standing on a point of genuine principle. The man leading the party is a pox. Taxation, bloated state, euro-bureaucracy, euro-scepticism (the notion Cameron is even slightly euro-sceptic is laughable)… do the Tories aggressively pursue ANY of these tacks? Fuck no. They spend their time bending over backwards assuring people they a represent continuity with the Big State Regulatory world of Gordon Brown, just ever so slightly(Link) less so.
And you wonder why Labour survives? The problem is not Labour, it is the Tory party. Like Bruno says, UKIP is the only option left as the grossly misnamed Conservative party is functionally no different than the Labour party… The Stupid Party indeed.
That is genuinely funny and extremely politically incorrect.
Perry,
Are you saying that a Tory party which espoused conservative principles and had a coherent agenda would be romping ahead?
So why in their constant re-inventions for 11 (11+) years have they not tried that? I think because it is political suicide. The media etc would crucify them. Which is why iDave (who is as vacous as you say) has decided to try the schtick of “I’m just like Tony was in ’97 and unlike Labour have, we haven’t fucked-up – yet”.
And I think this is because of Blair. Blairism and The Turd Way have been and will continue to be tremendously influential in shaping the UK political landscape. Around ’97 do you remember the anagram “I’m Tory Plan B”? That meme grew wings because (wrightly or wrongly) it was widely perceived to have an essential truth to it. That is why The Turd Way is vastly nastier and more effective a statist tool than that old heffalumping Clause 4 nonsense. The right/left spectrum has shifted a great many notches left and way too many people now perceive anything to the right of Cameron as swivel-eyed xenophobic, eat the poor, Thatcher redux loonacy. And before anyone mentions that the R/L spectrum is a crude way of looking at politics… It is but it doesn’t stop people looking at it that way.
Blair by allowing himself to be perceived as a “nicy Tory” or whatever has seriously moved the goal-posts although to be fair the Tories going round and round in circles trying to out-Blair Blair for the past decade-plus hasn’t helped either. They have re-inforced the “new consensus” by conspiring with it.
They have dug themselves a “centrist” pit which will take years to get out of – if at all. But moreover they have conspired to make that the general arena of political debate.
Unfortunately this also scuppers the chances of the likes of UKIP who are (laughably) seen as the middle-class wing of the BNP* and utterly beyond the pale by way to many people including basically all of the MSM.
Which is another reason to “waste” your vote on UKIP. The more people do it the more the media will have to take them seriously.
Or if you really want to “waste” your vote there’s always LPUK 😉
*Despite the BNP being socialists.
Perry, OJT,
I don’t get it!
And that would be because the alternatives they tried have been so successful?
As for the media, fuck ’em. No, seriously. I think you vastly vastly vastly over estimate their power and influence. If a Tory leader stood up and actually did a Thatcher style handbagging, unapologetic, on-yer-bike, fuck-the-bailout-for-bankers and in-yer-face, people would actually respond rather well. Stop defending and attack, attack, attack. Face it, no one ever lost votes bashing bankers, yet even that truism is lost on dismal Dave. For fuck sake, he should be arguing for a Britain in which gay couples can start businesses on CCTV free high streets without being taxed for daring to employ people and then regulated out of business. That is the approach to take.
How much failure does it take to stop digging the same hole deeper? How many times does having their arses handed to them fighting on ground of the other side’s choosing does it take to realise attacking the enemy where they do not want to fight might be a better idea? How long does to it take for acting craven and promising to not rock the sinking boat to be seen as not just contemptible but bad politics? The last point at least should resonate inside the empty cranium of the likes of Cameron. I know better that to try and discuss morality and philosophy with a politician but at least political utility should work… yet seemingly not with Britain’s so-called ‘conservatives’.
Let me make it simple in terms even a Tory can understand: the last lengthy spell in power for the Tories was achieved against the back drop of demonstrably failed statism (both Labour and Tory Heathite) and it was NOT gained by promising more of the same. I find it amazing anyone needs to point this out.
To think that this is the end of some era because Reaganism is being “rolled” back is not fully grasp the smoke and mirrors engaged in by both sides of the aisle.
Yes Reagan cut taxes, but he didn’t successfully cut spending (blame him, blame the democratic Congress, whoever). The paleo-debt mongers were the sires of those who, over the last decade and a half, said we had an elastic public “credit card” we could keep remaxing as long as the economy continued to grow and grow, fixing in on percentage of the GDP to state just how much the State could borrow for its own purposes (like the unfunded entitlement seeds planted in the 30’s that were never rooted out).
And so the cycle began of laying proverbial track just in time to meet the accelerating locomotive. The Feds kept pushing more and more money into the pipeline, “controlling” inflation (and slowly eating peoples’ savings) and making the environment in which dizzying consumption was the order fo the day, people buying so much stuff that their garages were filled to the rafters and their cars in the driveway. It kept the economy growing allowing for even more borrowing (and the issuance of new unfunded entitlements).
But now its all gone up in flames. The worst scenerio is now upon us – massive debts and a shriinking economy, forcing (supposedly) even more borrowing and spending putting the bill off another few years.
But the notion that we haven’t ultimately been on the same track the whole time, to split this whole Statist debacle between more rational and less rational eras is to miss what actually happened. The Statist expansion went on apace. We just changed the smoke and mirrors of the thing, and our “betters” finally gave up on the concept of balanced budgets and put balances on every “credit card” it coudl find. And “prosperity” reigned. But the reality is we were always on the crash course with destiny – ever since we came up with the New Deal and the Great Society, we were on a crash course with reality. Instead of Reagan TRULY creating a new era, he just created a new method of smoke and mirrors to keep the thing rolling along.
The net result, ultimately, of these Statist policies is to reward spendthrifts and punish savers. The Feds only ever cared about the National Balance Sheet from a macro view. If some of the great unwashed had positive equity and some had negative equity, who cared? They just cared how things looked on a macro-level as controlled by them. When the shit hit the fan, they knew all along they’d just take from Peter to give to Paul regardless of the micro-level decisions made by those finite individuals (effectively cancelling out their individualism). Paul could live it up (he was, afterall, helping to stimulate the economy and therefore the State’s borrowing base) and if Peter lived sensibly for his own rainy day well too damn bad, fork it over.
But this reality NEVER changed so long as the State was as unconstitutionally large as it was. This ALWAYS is the end point of Statism, forcing a portion of the people to live for the sake of another. And that NEVER changed over the last eight decades. Anyone who thought so was deluded.
Count me as part of the 21% / 37%.
As depressing as it all is, I take solace in the fact that there are still some like me (we are not all Obamatrons) on both sides of the pond.
No it is much simpler than that. Two words: Cold War. Not an issue now for a future Reagan/Goldwater as the threat of Islamic fundamentalism is a puny annoyance compared to a potential Global Götterdämmerung with the Soviet Union.
Chinks = Chinese. Gordon Wong: geddit? Mrs. Albion, a vision of oriental loveliness who this jammy former squaddie landed whilst in Hong Kong, though it was hilarious too. Bless.