The Suave Economist

letters: Where capitalists get their principles

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:05:03 -0500

letters: Where capitalists get their principles:

I have noticed a problem in American political discourse: leftists brands as cynics people who say that experience is a good guide for economic policy. This is too bad, and not true. I argue that experience is, in fact, a reasonable way to guide decision-making on economic policy.

Jean-François…

Exposure 2011 | Julia Dent

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:33:10 -0500

Exposure 2011 | Julia Dent

theawesomestpossum: Zebulon Vances who look like Ron Swanson.

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 23:30:09 -0400

theawesomestpossum:

Zebulon Vances who look like Ron Swanson.

The Palin Precipice; Or, the You-Need-to-Be-Able-to-Quote-Hayek Litmus Test

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:27:12 -0400

Check it out, here: http://thesuaveeconomist.blogspot.com/2011/09/palin-precipice-or-you-need-to-be-able.html

An Open Letter to the DTH

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 10:57:12 -0400

Because the DTH Edit Board decided to publish this instead of my response to their idiotic editorial on campaign finance, I’ve decided to print it here instead:

To the editor,

Usually, the leftist asininity found in “Keep elections in the citizens’ hands” is reserved for screeds at Huffington Post. Somehow, it escapes the Left how vacuous it is to simply call something “voter-owned,” then, voilà, declare it “clean” and “fair.” It ignores the inherent coercion required in a system where taxpayers are forced to subsidize every candidate, even candidates with whom they disagree. Should supporters of abortion be required to fund Rick Perry’s candidacy? The editorial subscribed to the demonstrably false Marxist framework of assuming corporate interests are monolithic (and, implicitly, its equally false corollary that corporate interests are synonymous with the Right).

Why is there a bias against corporations? They, as one presidential nominee ineptly put it, are people, too. Corporations are people and benefit people (workers, consumers, etc). They are an association of people which the Left arbitrarily decides should not participate in the political process. This is ironic considering that shareholders control corporate donations far more than labor union members whose (coerced) dues go to political candidates. It is also frequently ignored that corporations only make donations when their interests are affected, so Big Government naturally leads to more corporate donations.

Contrary to the editorial, “political power” is not placed in the “hands of the voters” when you remove their ability to fund candidates with whom they agree to whatever degree they desire. It’s taken out of their hands, and placed in the hands of incumbents. Limiting free speech in elections is not “democratic sanity”- it’s actually what we’d normally call “tyranny.”

POWER

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:15:00 -0400

One critique in politics I never understand is that one party is doing such-and-such because they’re only interested in “power.” The Left accuses it of the Right, and vice-versa. But what does it even mean- that one side is only interested in power for power’s sake? It makes you picture some Voldemort-esque figure- ”All I want is vague, nebulous, formless power!” *evil laugh*- but then you remember that even Voldemort wielded his power for a specified purpose.

Yet, here it is, today, in Paul Krugman’s latest blog post: The GOP has shown “itself utterly uninterested in anything except gaining the upper hand.”

Au contrare, M. Krugman, the Republicans have actually made their intentions crystal clear. Actually, they’re the ONLY negotiating party to do so since no one else has published a budget proposal. And with the Ryan Plan, the GOP is also the only party to have a clear proposal for entitlement reform.

Krugman even makes that point a paragraph later, accusing the Republicans of seeking “privatization and big tax cuts for the wealthy.”

It’s hard to argue they’re “utterly uninterested” in anything but “the upper hand” if they’ve put forward policy proposals, but I suppose Krugman wouldn’t allow an opportunity to question the motives of the GOP with a semi-decent rhetorical ploy to pass him by. Though, hopefully we’ve all grown immune to Krugman’s tired caricature of Republicans as the baleful manifestations of Stupidity and Wickedness.

A Prediction

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:57:00 -0400

Sample news story from September 2012:

WASHINGTON- President Obama commemorates gay pride at the White House this evening, welcoming some of his gay and lesbian supporters and renewing his commitment to helping them “win the future.”

But unlike a similar event last year, this year, he finally used the opportunity to flash his rainbow stripes in support of marriage equality.

“I’ve said my views have been evolving,” Obama said during a midday press conference. “Today, I can proudly announce that I support ending marriage discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

Or something along those lines. Think about it. We’ve seen his views “evolve” in four stages:

1. As a state legislator, he supported gay marriage;

2. As a presidential candidate, he opposed it;

3. As president, he’s stated he said it should be left up to the states;

4. And finally, he says his views are “evolving.”

Show of hands: who believes Obama ever changed his mind or actually opposes gay marriage? He has refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, opposed Prop 8 in California, and described the New York passage of gay marriage as “a good thing.”

As the preeminent “pragmatic” politician, going into the 2008 elections, he knew better than the rock the boat as that innocent era of economic booms and Federal Marriage Amendment debates came to a close.

But 2012 will be different. He’s the incumbent. And momentum is with the gay rights crowd. More importantly, Obama is on the outs with much of the Left; i.e., the segment of the party that provides the enthusiasm, volunteers, and (more to the point) money. His approval rating nationwide stands at 47% according to the most recent CBS News/NYTimes poll. Within the numbers, his approval among Democrats is 76%- an almost 10% drop from January of this year.

Worse is the enthusiasm among Democrats about the future. Only 44% of Democrats believe the country is on the right track- an almost 15% drop from five months ago. Which makes sense. I mean, if you were a Democrat casting your ballot for the man you thought could wave his magic wand and make our problems go away, you’d be pretty disappointed too.

And the things they complain about- unemployment, income inequality, Libya, etc-aren’t going away any time soon- except the War in Afghanistan which will, conveniently, end in September 2012 (I guess he’s listening to his generals insofar as David Axelrod is a general).

But what’s one thing that is eminently in his power to change that has consistently irritated his base (the people he desperately needs to turn out in high numbers)? Why, gay marriage. Endorsing gay marriage would only be a win for him. A large majority of the Democratic Party (69%) support gay marriage- and I have yet to meet a Republican or independent who currently support Obama but for whom gay marriage will be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Endorsing gay marriage would excite his base and give pundits an opportunity to compete in praising this “thoughtful, reflective, independent-thinking” president who’s willing to “risk his political career” to make a stand on a “controversial issue” ad nauseum.

While I disagree with same-sex marriage (civil unions are a-okay), I respect people with whom I disagree if they’re honest about their opinions. And I don’t mind politicians who change their minds, but when it’s conveniently close to the following election, it’s safe to call that opportunism. Although if I’m right, it would cement the fact that this president isn’t even cunning in his political cynicism. Even now, we simply expect it.

Seize the Day!

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:56:15 -0400

Seize the Day!:

My first contribution to the newest lit-crit blog on the block, Mayakovski is Delightful.

A teaser:

“Rarely do we see men cry- and not just a UNC-loses-to-Duke cry, but a cry where you can see their very soul in agony as their tears wash away whatever purpose they see in existence.

But that is the image with which we are confronted at the close of Seize the Day by Saul Bellow: a man, helpless, crying “with all his heart,” next to a casket with a crowd of mourners wondering who this man is.Although it is a novella, we know a great deal about the essence of Tommy Wilhelm. He is a man forty-four years of age, recently unemployed, close to bankruptcy, an adulterer but still married, and a son with an antagonistic father (from his perspective); basically, an example of the man J. Alfred Prufrock fears he may become…”

A Middle School Cafeteria Debate: The Constitution

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:25:00 -0400

Not many kids were like me, but, yes, I’ll admit I debated the Constitution in middle school. Our understanding of the Constitution had grown since elementary school (the days when we yelled, “It’s a free country!” whilst slamming another kid’s head into a pole), but it was still pretty simplistic:

“It’s soooo old!”

“But the Founders were pretty smart guys.”

And you might have even heard one of us, we silly 6th graders, say something like this to discredit the founding:

“Here are a few things the framers did not know about: World War II. DNA. Sexting. Airplanes. The atom. Television. Medicare. Collateralized debt obligations. The germ theory of disease. Miniskirts. The internal combustion engine. Computers. Antibiotics. Lady Gaga.”

And that’s the kind of argument Richard Stengel of Time puts forth in the cover article about the Constitution. He purports to further our understanding of the Constitution and to mediate between the left and right- and utterly fails at both; in addition to making a particularly unpersuasive case for the Living Constitution. I’m happy to concede that I’m no constitutional scholar- but I’d like to think I’ve wrestled with some of the issues the Constitution presents. It’s just not obvious that Stengel has as well.

As you might guess, he immediately sets up a strawman about originalists: the founders didn’t know about xyz, so how can we still accept the document they created? Fair question, but as he later explains, for the Founders (as it remains today), the Constitution “was a set of principles, not a code of laws. A code of laws says you have to stop at the red light; a constitution has broad principles that are unchanging but that must accommodate each new generation and circumstance.” Yes, precisely. This is hardly a profound insight- one that, in fact, every originalist, conservative, whomever would agree with. Justice Scalia has time and time again agreed with that idea.

But for Stengel’s argument, destroying this (mythical) idea of the Constitution as a “traffic cop” is a necessary exercise. Once he convinces us that originalists actually believe that the Constitution “has a clear, fixed meaning,” he can supplant his own ideas in its place: that “[t]he Constitution works so well precisely because it is so opaque, so general, so open to various interpretations.” Basically, pay lip service to the Constitution while we do what we damn well please.

Well, no. The Constitution works so well because it allows augmentation (as Hannah Arendt argued in On Revolution), meaning later generations can modify the document to take into consideration changes that the Founders happily admitted they could not foresee- as he says, “it was not written in stone.”

More importantly, while various interpretations are possible, there are interpretations that aren’t- just like there can be multiple readings of the epilogue in The Tempest, but aside from the Keunian perspective (an historicist claim that it’s asking for applause) and its corollary (that it’s meant as Shakespeare’s farewell to the theater), there’s not much else that would be correct. There’s a limited range of interpretation. He even makes the analogy that the Constitution acts like a “guardrail”- we can drive anywhere we want on the road, but what he seems to forget about guardrails is that they don’t let us leave that road.

Stengel plays this game most obviously when he tries to argue that the Constitution is ambivalent about the individual mandate. And not only is it ambivalent, he contends it’s kind of silly to even argue the case on constitutional grounds.

Ummm…

There’s actually a lot riding on that very question. He gives the usual litany about car insurance, taxes, serve on juries, etc.- ignoring the fact that the latter two are actually in the Constitution, while if you don’t own a car, you don’t have to buy car insurance. What the individual mandate does is say, “You exist. You have to buy health insurance,” a position that is unprecedented whether or not you agree with it.

His agenda becomes clear towards the end of the article (if the snipes at President Bush didn’t give it all away) when he says: “[W]e cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle to the U.S.’s moving into the future with a sensible health care system, a globalized economy, an evolving sense of civil and political rights.”

In other words, “The Constitution as written stands in the way of the agenda I want to implement.” We ought to let me and like-minded individuals have free reign!

So basically, all this article amounts to is a poor regurgitation of John Dewey and past thinkers on the left who developed the idea of the Living Constitution because it very much stood in their way.

It’s ironic he titled his article, “One Document, Under Siege” because the only reason our Constitution is “under siege” is the kind of Living Constitution Stengel advocates. Sure, there are Tea Partiers who take their devotion to the other extreme, but if the Constitution actually means something, then Stengel & Co. need to change their tune. If not, then let’s just scrap it and start anew. That’s what some of my sparring buddies argued for over our bagged lunches. At least they were being intellectually honest.

Thanks, Fareed, But No Thanks

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:39:00 -0400

Fareed Zakaria, the former next Secretary of State/soon-to-be Henry Kissinger, penned a column recently for Time (which, fortunately, didn’t seem to target 10 year-olds like the rest of the magazine) where he argued that conservatism has lost touch with reality. It (disappointingly) amounted to nothing more than a mash of media-driven hype using the media’s favorite tactic of pre-defining “conservatism” as “whatever Michelle Bachmann has to say” and then screaming, “THEY’VE GONE CRA-ZAY!!!”

The crucial point he fails to understand (or conveniently misses) is that conservatism is an approach to politics or a political philosophy, not a party- a misunderstanding the header for his article (“Party Politics”) betrays. Nor is conservatism an individual politician- or even a group of politicians. Out of necessity, we use “conservatism” as shorthand for everything to the Right on our political spectrum, but we should never forget that conservatism includes figures as diverse as Friedrich von Hayek, Andrew Sullivan, Russell Kirk, David Brooks, William F. Buckley, George Will, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddhin, Christopher Hitchens (at one time), and Ron Paul. Assuming all of them fit in an ideological straitjacket won’t work. If anything, it’s like the old joke about rabbis: ask three conservatives about quantitative easing, and you’re likely to get five different answers.

But he does make some (seemingly) damning critiques of modern day conservatism.

He says, “[R]ight now any discussion of government involvement in the economy- even to build vital infrastructure- is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad.”

That’s a pretty simplistic (and inaccurate) caricature of what conservatives actually say (and even the Republican presidential candidates). The debate over the past few years has never been about anything conservatives would agree is a proper role for government. It’s been about federalizing healthcare, potential overregulation, federalizing education, or the “stimulus” package. So of course they say no. It’s not as if we actually debated infrastructure, and even when we did (when debating the “stimulus” package), infrastructure spending was peripheral to the overall debate (as it totaled only 6.1% of the package). While many conservatives may be dispositional anarchists, they understand that, unfortunately, some government is required. If there were a bill that was solely dedicated to improving America’s infrastructure, most conservatives would sign on.

And he starts to sound downright Friedman-esque (Tom, not Milton) when he argues that China “has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades.” Really? He looks at China- who has only experienced growth because they’ve slowly introduced capitalism into the economy- and says that’s thanks to the government (that same government that killed millions of people before saying, “Woah, maybe we should try some of this capitalism thing”)?

Further down, Zakaria asserts that, during the healthcare debate, conservatives hadn’t bothered to study existing healthcare systems, is weird insofar as it is completely untrue. At least from what I read, conservatives took seriously what other countries have done- I even remember one who favorably reviewed the German system. Most conservatives rejected Obamacare not because of “abstract principles” but because what they saw from foreign systems struck them as pretty mediocre. If you’re looking for a lack of evidence, look no further than Obama’s claims about cost controls in the legislation- and by lack of evidence, I mean contradicted by evidence.

Basically, he doesn’t understand what conservatism is. He portrays Burke as a thinker who argued that “to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve”- which is true, but Burke never argued for ambiguous evolution or change for the sake of change. Far from it- the change he envisioned had a particular end. He was a big believer in conserving unless there were a dire need for change.

Using Zakaria’s characterization of Burke, conservatives should have been relegated to the “Whoa, Nelly!” position during the health care debate- not actually opposing ObamaCare, just saying it should be implemented slower. Which is absurd because, ever since Burke, conservatism does have principles: the “traditional rights of Englishmen” or, for we Americans, “certain unalienable Rights” (“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”). Conservative “reforms were powerful because they used the market, streamlined government and empowered individuals,” which is true. But, more importantly, they were powerful because they are commensurate with those “unalienable Rights.”

Conservatism is dedicated to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” So I can only hope modern conservatives Zakaria’s advice and stick to their guns in defense of those principles.

GOP Primary Debate: Recap

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:32:00 -0400

Last night was kind of boring. As predictable as a Nicholas Sparks book with none of the… well, never mind. Nothing too exciting (Bachmann’s announcement was just kind of weird). And CNN proved that it’s not only a bad news network, but a bad debate sponsor. The candidates could barely get their answers out before John King’s tut-tut-tutting drowned them out- and, honestly, 30 seconds? You can’t ask candidates substantive questions and give them such a short amount of time (“How do you plan on reforming Social Security? Thirty seconds, now!”)

Nobody really stood out. Everyone is saying Romney did well, but he only did well because he didn’t say anything remarkable; Ron Paul did his thing; and there was unanimity that President Obama is doing a poor job. *yawn*

Really, only two candidates distinguished themselves last night: Bachmann and Herman Cain. Bachmann came in as the Palin, Part 2 candidate: equally as hot, but even crazier. After that debate, she established herself as a legitimate candidate who may have Palin’s folksiness, but gives thoughtful, substantive answers on a range of topics, although anyone who read the interview with her in The Wall Street Journal would have seen it coming (even if Slate won’t be giving up that shtick any time soon).

Cain distinguished himself last night insofar as he destroyed any credibility he had going into the debate (although that didn’t stop Vice President Biden from defending him: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Oh wait…). King brought up Cain’s Wagner-esque comments about having Muslims in his cabinet (“We need more jobs…and Muslims are bad…because we need economic growth!”), and instead of renouncing his distaste for Muslims, he defended those comments- much to Salon’s glee. Though that did give an opening for Romney to show that real Republicans aren’t like that.

Though the best moment was definitely when Romney got tripped up when talking about the free market- he had such passion, speaking from the heart. It was cute.

After that debate, I’ve decided to go back to rooting for Ron Paul, until either Romney seduces me with that devilish hair style of his or another candidate comes along and shows me they have Ron Paul’s grasp of economics (minus his minor obsession with the Fed), but a little less militancy (and maybe just a bit younger). But then again, Mitch Daniels isn’t running… *sigh*

And if you're interested....

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:34:00 -0400

And if you're interested....:

Check out this link. It’s, in my opinion, a pretty bad (from a journalistic perspective) piece about Nadal. Even though I’m firmly in the Federer camp, I still think this is a bad piece. It has certainly stirred up Nadal partisans across the world.

A French Open Wrap-up

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:33:00 -0400

Now, I realize that this is pretty late (but, hey, I moved to Atlanta and started an internship there, so cut me some slack). But last week’s final for the French Open was phenomenal.

There are those matches where the set score doesn’t tell the full story and this is definitely one of those instances. Federer had the match won until he had set point, up 5-2 in the first, and lost the point on a drop shot that was a hair wide. He went on to lose the game, then four straight to lose the set 7-5. He had everything going for him- his first-serve percentage was north of 60% and had a number of aces. His next two service games in the set, he had 4 faults on the first serve in each.

He remained competitive throughout the match (almost picking off the fourth set, winning five of six games after being down 4-2), but I think his defeat can be traced back to the disappointment that was evident on his face when his shot was called wide. There was a clear momentum shift.

It was tragic.

French Open: Day 7

Sat, 28 May 2011 11:35:02 -0400

Thoughts…

I like how no one was surprised at Wozniacki’s loss yesterday. No. 1, but still has yet to win a slam.

Poor Mardy Fish. Losing is bad enough, but straight sets to a higher seed? And a Frenchman? Pauvre petit.

Where are the Asian men? For women, you’ve got Peng, Li, and Chan, not a one on the men’s side.

Del Potro must be regretting his light call last night. Djokovic steam-rolled him today.

Federer is looking really good. This may be his tournament if Nadal keeps stumbling like he has.

And here’s to Andy Murray’s ankle healing.

Bush is not A Conservative

Fri, 27 May 2011 10:19:31 -0400

Even as a Republican, I had serious disagreements with former President George W. Bush: “No Child Left Behind,” the Medicare Prescription Plan, the massive deficit, and the weak dollar policy his administration pursued.

Another example would be his position on trade. The Washington Post reported that one of those midnight regulations towards the close of the Bush administration was to raise the duty on Roquefort cheese three-fold, to 300%. Some deal over the EU banning US beef.

Very well. Perhaps President Bush is not a cheese-lover, and if you are not a cheese-lover, Roquefort cheese is the stereotypical French cheese and can be a hard swallow. The green veins and the strong flavor can be an immediate turn-off for the uninitiated. Maybe knowing that what you are eating came from the milk of an ewe is unappetizing.

But there is a broader point. People still adhere to the notion that President Bush was a conservative. He was conservative, but not a conservative, paraphrasing the late William F. Buckley, Jr. A conservative would understand the benefits of free trade even with the protectionist policies implemented by the EU. A conservative wouldn’t take the attitude, “You block my beef, I’ll block your cheese.” He would understand that, for example, the Great Depression was caused in part by the protectionist tariffs implemented by the Smoot-Hawley Act, leading to retaliatory actions by other countries followed by a global decrease in trade, causing unemployment.

A conservative, upon hearing the news that the EU had decided to ban imports of US beef, would sit back in the Oval Office, hoist his legs on the desk and enjoy the delicacy from the village of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, downing it with sips of Sauternes, secure in the knowledge that if the EU wants to ban US beef, so be it. They can only hurt themselves by jettisoning free trade.

French Open: Day 5

Thu, 26 May 2011 11:37:58 -0400

Sweet may have been the uses of adversity, but that sweetness is wearing thing. Roaming through the Forest of Arden, at least there was the sense that, one day, in the near future, we can all return to court and all will be better. The use of sweet was, of course, ironic- who honestly wants to feel the “churlish chiding of the winter’s wind” or feel the cost of original sin in a very real sense? And, yes, the day arrived when, finally, order was once again restored.

That day seems very far off for American men’s tennis. Querrey lost in straight sets to unranked Ljubicic, leaving Fish as the only American left in the men’s draw. Tuesday, at least, we saw a glimmer of hope. Isner fell to Nadal, but he fell to Nadal. And he forced him to five sets for the first time in an opening match in Roland Garros. Harrison, in his first French Open and only in his fourth year as pro, managed to snag a set away from 2009 and 2010 runner-up Soderling.

Fish did win in straight sets against Haase. He’ll be playing the winner of Chardy-Simon, very winnable either way. He has at least a decent shot to land in the fourth round, doubtful in the quarters (he’d most likely be playing Soderling in the fourth round).

But what about after the French? Fish is 29, a year older than Andy Roddick. James Blake is 31; Isner, 26; Querrey, 23. Querrey and Harrison (19) offer our best hope for the future. Roddick has been our rock-star these past several years, but in the Federer/Nadal/Djokovic Era, he can be excused for hardly making a mark. He last won a slam in 2003 (the US Open). The last American to win the French was Agassi (in 1999). With Roddick injured, and his soul-wrenching loss to Federer in Wimbledon in 2009, it’s doubtful he can pull off anything great in Wimbledon or the US Open this year.

With the memories of Sampras and Agassi slowly fading, we need a champion to lead us from our impending oblivion, or American men’s tennis will definitely be sans everything.

Krugman & Coulter: Twins Separated at Birth (Part 3)

Thu, 26 May 2011 10:15:00 -0400

For me, what really secured Krugman’s place as the Left-wing Ann Coulter was his column following the Tuscon tragedy. Just one day after the shooting, he came out swinging against right-wing talk show hosts, politicians, leaders of the GOP, just about anyone on the Right who Krugman dislikes. He even concedes that Jared Loughner was mentally deranged mid-way through the column, but doesn’t let that get in the way of his thesis, that Republicans are to blame. The sheer absurdity of that point of view should have been obvious to any objective observer of the events: Obama and the Democrats have made equal if not more of those nefarious metaphors than Republicans, so how can that be the causal link? Krugman is so far out of his depths, delving into the psychological of an individual he’s never met, it becomes ridiculous (and, needless to say, totally unrelated to his economics background). He takes his hyper-partisanship to the same level as Ann Coulter when she says things like, “While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security.”

Replace “Democratic” in the following sentence (and subtract the “flag-waving” bit) and you’d get boilerplate Ann Coulter: “But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at the Republican National Convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation’s freedom, diversity and complexity.” But somehow, even though Krugman says these things on a regular basis, he’s one of the “serious people,” able to appear shoulder-to-shoulder on Sunday talk shows with actual “serious people” like George Will and Cokie Roberts. There’s definitely a place in our society for these folks: party rallies where you can toss out the red-meat. Not, if you’re sincerely worried about civil discourse, on the op/ed pages of nationally-renowned papers, where Krugman currently resides.

What marks both Coulter’s and Krugman’s commentary is their continuous use of “they.” For Coulter, “they” are the liberals and the Democrats who are doing their best to undermine the US at every point. For Krugman, “they” are the House Republicans, the GOP, or conservatives who are trying to screw over America and funnel money to the rich. This isn’t constructive in any sense of the word. It just plays to into their respective sides’ worst elements. As one leftist pundit said, Krugman is the guy in there, assuring the Left that, No, “It is rigged. You are right.” Coulter offers the same tonic for the Right. So no matter, Princeton don or just an Ivy alumnus, when it comes to their commentary, Krugman and Coulter are indistinguishable.

(Part 1) (Part 2)

(3/3)

Check out my new CR Article!

Wed, 25 May 2011 15:33:06 -0400

Check out my new CR Article!

Krugman & Coulter: Twins Separated at Birth (Part 2)

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:59:00 -0400

Just read his daggum articles. They hardly qualify as scholarly- far from it. Coulter wrote Slander, Treason, Godless, and Guilty, all epithets she has for liberals. Any collection of Krugman’s articles could have the same titles, except he’d be attacking Republicans. If you believe Krugman, the only policy elites (i.e., they don’t have popular support) who exist are Republicans and for the past decade, most of the problems we have experienced are thanks to this very same class of people. He obviously doesn’t think Republicans actually believe what they’re saying (e.g., “tax cuts help everyone”), so he comes up with weirdly conspiratorial language to describe what’s going on- tax cuts are “hostages” which will be used to gain power back for Republicans in 2012. Power for what end? Who knows, more and more nebulous power, presumably- kind of like Iago’s “motiveless malignancy.” Oh, and, of course, another chance to funnel money to their rich and powerful cronies (i.e., the Koch brothers). They’re just biding their time before they can extract yet another “ransom.” And this isn’t an anomaly. Think about his quotes like, “Can we break the machine that is imposing right-wing radicalism on the United States? The scariest part is that the media is part of that machine.” The right-wing is to Krugman as Mossad is to Egypt.

If you read Ann Coulter, that’s exactly her view of events too. President Obama, that anti-colonialist, son of a Keynan, is intent on destroying America’s future because he doesn’t want America to be great. The title of a recent column of hers is “Democrats: Emboldening America’s Enemies and Terrifying Her Allies Since 1976.” Or “You Don’t Have to be Crazy to be a Democrat, But it Helps.” Democrats can’t honestly believe what they say- they have to be crazy or are nefariously undermining America at every turn.

Krugman cherry-picks from recent history so often and with a highly partisan outlook that it makes complete sense why he writes what he does. Looking at the debt ceiling debate, he says, normally, raising the debt ceiling is a bipartisan affair, no party would try to “impose its agenda on the nation”- except, perhaps, Democrats in 2006? The vote to raise the debt ceiling was 52-48, with liberal luminaries like then-Senator Obama voting against the increase.

At least Coulter embraces the term “polemicist.”

(Part 1)

(2/3)

2012 is not 1940 for the GOP...

Wed, 25 May 2011 07:57:00 -0400

I was going to write a piece about that, but Ramesh Ponnuru wrote it for me:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-23/don-t-underestimate-republicans-in-2012.html

His point about comparing this field to the Democratic field in 2008 is huge: neither Hillary nor Obama had any executive experience, but even today’s second-tier candidates include a two-term governor (Gary Johnson).

And even the Wendell Willkie comparison falls pretty short. In 1940, there were four potential nominees: Willkie, a businessman from New York; Thomas Dewey, then a Manhattan district attorney; Senator Robert Taft; and Senator Arthur Vandenberg.

Today, Republicans can boast of a field consisting of a former governor of one of the nation’s most populous states and a successful businessman to boot (Romney); a successful two-term governor of the only state which held out against the Reagan Revolution (Pawlenty); a former Speaker of the House (Gingrich, even if he has gone bonkers); a libertarian former two-term governor (Gary Johnson); a libertarian, long-time Congressman (Ron Paul); and a former CEO and member of a Regional bank of the Federal Reserve (Herman Cain).

The GOP has come a long way. Even if we’re dissatisfied with our options right now, this isn’t 1940. Our candidates have résumés Democrats in 2008 could only have dreamed of.