Once again we see liberals' "fiscal responsibility"

Some schmuck, a Democrat, campaigning for local office was touting himself on the local news as fighting for government that's more transparent, more responsible, more accountable. As one example, he fought an 8.9 percent tax increase down to...8 percent. Yeah.

On a national level, the Democrat are again demonstrating their commitment to "fiscal responsibility." That is to say, "fiscal responsibility," as in all cases with government, without exception, means that the government spends, and "we the taxpayers" are given the responsibility of paying for it. Republicans were more than bad enough, raising the national debt "ceiling" whenever they needed more money to spend, and they were in no way hindered by Democrats who were only too eager to join in the frenzy -- including then-Senator Obama.

The House just voted to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to a nearly inconceivable $14.3 trillion. The Senate already passed it, so it's now ready for Obama to sign into law. Since 1917, federal law has set a "debt ceiling" for Congress, which is simply amended by new legislation. Of what use is a restriction when the entity being restricted is the one setting the rule? The analogy "Dad, I need to push my curfew back to 3 a.m." isn't quite right, because that phrasing is one of seeking permission. The federal government's effective tone is "Dad, I'm pushing back my curfew."

The previous increase was via H.R.4314 ("To permit continued financing of Government operations."), sponsored by the execrable Charlie Rangel. It was passed by Congress last December 24th and quietly signed by Obama on the 28th. It was largely ignored by the mainstream media, as was the fact that it was far from the first time Obama broke his campaign promise to wait five days before signing bills, so "the people" can view it. While mainstream news bombarded us with "health care reform" twaddle, H.R.4314 quietly raised the debt ceiling from $12.104 trillion to $12.394 trillion. Democrats were originally seeking $1.8 trillion, so how "fiscally responsible" that was! And "merely" a few hundred billion dollars is no problem, right? The Federal Reserve can always create new money to buy more Treasury bonds.

There's also the nonsense of "PAYGO," that supposedly the feds will be restricted to spending money only as it's coming in: any spending increases must be balanced by spending cuts elsewhere, or by...tax increases. And which do you suppose will happen?

We should not be surprised at any of these lies being fed to us. This is the age where Obama can say with a straight face that he'll use TARP money, by definition borrowed money, to reduce our debt. That never came to pass, of course, and quite the opposite: Obama recently abandoned that idea and wants to lend $30 billion of TARP money to small businesses.

So much for your promises
They died the day you let me go even before you were inaugurated

Even more apropos words are later on, for every idiot who thought Obama could de:

Woke up to reality
And found the future not so bright
I dreamt the impossible
That maybe things could work out right
I thought it was you who would do me no wrong
And now you've given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heart

Lending TARP money is utterly irrational. (It's more importantly immoral because taxpayers will be forced to repay the borrowed money that they didn't want lent out, otherwise they'd be lending it themselves without government prodding them, but that's a subject for another post). As I recently blogged, irrationality with other people's money is because it's other people's money. "Rational" does not mean the decision is always the correct one, but it means the decision was made using a logical, methodical process to avoid systematic errors. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, government is spending Other People's Money on yet other people, so why should any care be taken how much is spent and on what? The private sector doesn't want to lend to these small businesses for a very good reason: lenders are afraid of not being paid back.

Some time ago, a store owner I know lamented that his credit line was cut to a third of what it was. He's a nice guy, but "nice" doesn't guarantee sales, and his particular business is very dependent on people's extra income to buy non-essentials. Thus it's perfectly understandable that his bank decided not to trust him with a high debt limit. It started questioning his very business model of recycled debt. In a speech last year, Obama claimed that the federal government needed to stimulate lending so that companies can meet payrolls. Ask yourself: how can any sustainable business survive on the idea of perpetual borrowing to meet its obligations? That's understandable for the first few years while it's being established, but not continually. It defies all business sense, but it fits with the idea of government spending being irrational.

Of course, the real answer is for government to stop taxing businesses, which would then not have to worry about borrowing money, but heaven forbid that anyone should keep his own property.

No, this isn't The Onion: Obama wants to use TARP to...reduce the deficit

Lost in the major headlines is something Mark Levin mentioned on his show tonight. Are we in an Orwellian nightmare, that government is now saying with a straight face that borrowed money, which already added to existing debt, can be used to reduce total debt?

White House Aims to Cut Deficit With TARP Cash
By DEBORAH SOLOMON and JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, under pressure to show it is serious about tackling the budget deficit, is seizing on an unusual target to showcase fiscal responsibility: the $700 billion financial rescue.

The administration wants to keep some of the unspent funds available for emergencies, but is considering setting aside a chunk for debt reduction, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also expected to lower the projected long-term cost of the program -- the amount it expects to lose -- to as little as $200 billion from $341 billion estimated in August.

A $210 billion surplus in TARP funding could be used to reduced the U.S.'s towering national deficit. WSJ's Deborah Solomon says the move follows criticism of the Obama administration's approach to debt.

The idea is still a matter of debate within the administration and it is unclear how much impact it would have on the nation's mounting deficit levels. Still, the potential move illustrates how the Obama administration is trying to find any way it can to bring down the deficit, which is turning into a political as well as an economic liability.

This is all borrowed money, whether from foreign nations or the Fed creating money out of thin air. The federal government did not cut from any other spending to compensate for TARP expenditures, therefore TARP was using all newly borrowed money. The claim is that the money won't be spent, but who really believes that will happen? It will be quietly paid back to the lenders, giving Congress a mere several of weeks before they again approach that farce called a "debt ceiling"?

Let's look at the numbers. Last month, Reuters reported $138 billion left in TARP. The latest numbers I can find are from Scripps News, which agrees with the WSJ's figure of $210 billion. However, that's inflated: it's counting the expected $50 billion in repayments over the next 12 to 18 months. Sure, sure. And when you apply to a bank, hedge fund or other entity that asks for your net worth, do you think you can factor in the next year and a half of "expected income"?

The higher figure doesn't cover much past the October deficit alone ($176 billion), anyway. The national debt as of tonight is $11.99 trillion. That's 11,995.7 billion dollars. Even if this money had come from Santa Claus, it still wouldn't make a dent.

If a private company told its stockholders anything like reducing its debt via borrowed money that's part of the overall debt, any executives putting their names to those documents would be going to jail for accounting fraud. Why aren't we holding federal officials, and yes I'm including Obama, to the same standard?

The Scripps article concludes, "The whole $210 billion would probably not even cover the deficit we've run in the last six weeks but even a symbolic gesture is at least a start."

Symbolic? That's like Brad DeLong making a token gesture of dieting by ordering a burger without cheese...then adding a slice he bought elsewhere.

Finally, note that the Treasury expects that taxpayers will lose "as little as $200 billion" from TARP. So much for Bush's claims of taxpayers making a profit, and Barney Frank's own lies. Tim Cavanaugh debunked the Obama administration spin of last September, and on the flip side are absurd profit projections by the New York Times that that fool Yglesias gobbled right up.

Anything the government can do, the free market can do better, part III

Shucks, Mike, your kind words are much appreciated. For a couple of years I haven't blogged as often as I'd like, but I do what I can. I started reading Billy's blog after his first link to me a few years ago. He's taught me a lot, not always directly, but he got me thinking through certain assumptions I clung to, which nearly all young Americans develop in a public education. They essentially boil down to this one: "But at minimum, don't we need government for ___?" It's a problem that many "libertarians" have.

In recent comments I linked to something that I was meaning to blog about for months, but I kept forgetting. I almost never listen to Rush Limbaugh's show, but I had the day off and was driving to meet someone for lunch. He talked about this story of rebuilding Polihale State Park's access road, which was destroyed by flooding. Hawaii's state government said it would cost $4 million and require two years of construction, and there was no money for it. Locals, then, did it in eight days and at their own expense. So much for two years!

Was it all out of charity? No, as the article clearly states. Business owners got involved because repairing the road was to their benefit -- decreased visitors, or none at all, meant they weren't making money. And so what if they had that motive? It was their money. Better that they invest their own, rather than the immoral situation of everyone having to pitch in for something not everyone would equally benefit from.

It's reminiscent of when Donald Trump was so disgusted with the lack of progress in rebuilding Central Park's Wollman skating rink that he spent his own money to do it. Six years and $13 million later, the city government just couldn't get anything right. A big problem was the insistence on using freon, supposedly for energy savings, rather than the salt water systems that have worked so well for years (like at Rockefeller Center, which to my knowledge has never failed to open its rink during the winter).

Trump devoted an entire chapter of The Art of the Deal to this:

I never had a master plan. I just got fed up one day and decided to do something about it....

I knew nothing about building ice-skating rinks, but I did know something about construction. If it took me two and a half years to put up a major skyscraper, surely it was possible to build a $2 million ice-skating rink in a matter of months.

Yet no rational person should be surprised that his project succeeded so well, and the first time around. He had his money and reputation on the line. "If I failed--if I was even one day late, or one dollar over budget--my plan was to pack my bags and take the next plane to Argentina. There was no way Ed Koch or anyone else would ever let me live it down." Trump explained how he asked around to learn who was the absolute best, most trusted company in rink construction. He didn't bother with soliciting bids from contractors.

The city government, on the other hand, knew that even if voters remembered news reports, who could be blamed and ousted? The city commissioned a report that itself took 15 months to complete, and in the end no one responsible for the fiasco was ever named. Trump had already offered to take over the project, always at his own expense, with the promise that any profits would be donated to charity. What was there to lose, and who could lose?

Union workers, that's who could lose, and the city council members who received their generous campaign donations. That's no small reason why public projects are inevitably constructed so slowly and shoddily; the rest is pure incompetence. When I lived in Utah, Syncrete was an infamous example of government's desire to "experiment," since, after all, it's someone else's money being risked.

Syncrete proved to be less than the superior surface it was advertised to be, and the freeway surface began crumbling shortly after the project's completion. In the end the UDOT tore out the syncrete and admitted that the experiment had been a failure.

"Less than the superior surface it was advertised to be"? That's putting it mildly. The stuff immediately started falling apart as if it were styrofoam, for crying out loud. I was young then, but old enough to understand the TV news showing these chunks all over the road. Who knows how many windshields were cracked because some semi kicked them up like any common rock.

By contrast, as I keep mentioning, I come home to a private road so excellently constructed that it's been years -- before I moved into the neighborhood -- since its last paving. Similarly, I don't remember exactly when my neighbor across the street had his driveway repaved, maybe a couple of years ago. I came home from work one day and saw it was just finished. Compare that to the week it takes just to fill in a couple of potholes on the typical public road, or the months it's taken to redo Route 6 in Putnam County.

If you scroll near the end in these comments, I was telling our new liberal troll about the pedestrian bridge near the Metro-North train station at Chappaqua. Since it began last year, I can't help but notice how slowly it's going. Since it's a public project, there's no incentive for it to be done quickly or efficiently.

An example in my county is the Tappan Zee Bridge, the biggest joke in Westchester next to Andy Spano's "governance." The bridge opened in 1955 and, I recall, cost $500 million (approximately $4 billion in today's dollars). It's not even six decades old yet is already falling apart. Even the second London Bridge, surely built with inferior technology and materials, lasted over 130 years before it needed replacing.

Instead of repaving, raised metal plates are used for repairs, such utter crap that they don't even rise to the level of "makeshift" or "jury-rigging." I drive across the bridge once in a while, and I can assure you that 1.5 inches wreaks havoc on your car, no matter what "ramp plates" are claimed to use. The ramps up and down make the surface effectively sinusoidal. The amplitude is relatively small, certainly, but at vehicular speeds it's jarring enough that you must slow down. And that slows down the driver behind you, the one behind him, and so on.

This is a bridge where a simple repair has caused one-hour delays, stretching 13 miles back into Rockland County. The repair crews closed two of the four Westchester-bound lanes just to repair one pothole, and in the middle of the morning rush hour! Oh, and in case you don't notice it from the article, the crew didn't even fill in the pothole: they put another metal plate over it!

Update: look here to see what the plates look like, and here for a picture of them installed. You really have to drive over them to experience how terrible they are. And who is surprised that there are "cost overruns"?

This would have never happened in a free market, which is based on freedom and competition, not politics and favoritism. Someone else would have started building a competing bridge, and the better one would be getting all the business. At the very least, the bridge's owner-operator would have done such a repair only until after rush hour, or late at night, and certainly not by putting another damn metal plate over it.

In a free market, one private party contracts with another, and each side has to eat any "overruns" on his end. Thus it's to both sides' benefit that the contracts is negotiated honestly, with all expected costs and timetables taken into account.

The central planners, though, are as stupid as ever. They're looking to build a new bridge. Of course, it's easy for anyone to advocate building an entirely new one when it's not his money at stake:

Mark Kulewicz, director of traffic engineering and safety service at the Automobile Club of New York (the local affiliate of the AAA), advocated a new bridge as follows:

Instead of spending $1 billion to patch up a bridge that is already straining to handle the region's growing traffic volume, why not avoid all those years of messy construction delays and invest $4 billion in a modern structure that can serve more commuters, and in new ways?

Actually, the plan announced last September was for a $6.4 billion bridge, which tells us we should count on at least $10 billion before it's done.

Ask yourself: what could the free market do for $4 billion? What could it have done for the $286 billion highway bill, which Congressional Democrats are aiming to increase to $400 billion with its successor?

Update: here's a Times article that puts the total cost of a new bridge, plus expanded train and bus lines, at $16 billion:

Officials also looked at the possibility of rehabilitating the current bridge, which was built 52 years ago, but [State Transportation Commissioner Astrid Glynn] said that was a costly and complex project.

And $16 billion for the replacement is not costly?

Liberals make it self-evident, that they are lying cowards

So my resident troll "DocWashboard" keeps repeating the same lies, ignoring the world around us that proves "Anything government can do, the free market can do better." Well, as a veteran of Usenet flamewars, and BBS flamewars before then, I love few things better than laying down the smack on such morons.

For the umpteenth time, I've challenged him on what he dare not include in his replies, because he knows I fisk every single word he writes. Do you see how liberals try to "reason"? I use quotation marks because you can't call it true reasoning: when confronted with facts that prove them wrong, liberals deny them and attempt to obfuscate the discussion. They have no grasp of reality and refuse to view the world outside of their warped concepts. The sad part is that this one knows it only too well. He knows he's a liar, he knows he's a hypocrite, he knows he's a coward, and he'll use all three simultaneously by making vague replies in the hope he can't be pinned on anything, although his nature is that he can't help lying about what anyone has said.

Even the arch-liberal of liberals, John Maynard Keynes, was smart enough to say, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" Clearly, my latest troll just sticks his head in the sand -- or is that up his ass? I've had to change my mind; I admit it freely. One can see that by looking at my earlier blog entries. But I'm not a hypocrite: I won't attempt to whitewash history by deleting or modifying them, instead leaving them as evidence of my evolution into a free man.

Liberals need only speak or write to prove their stupidity

Look here for one of my favorite hobbies: giving a smackdown to a liberal turd who has no brains, has no balls, and has no grasp of reality.

Over at ThreeSources, Silence was silenced by my simple exposure of his state-worshipping. This liberal "DocWashboard" (who uses other handles to sockpuppet) just couldn't leave it alone, and that's when I have fun.

How to liberals lie with statistics

The classic can't hold a candle to liberals' tricks. An occasional commenter at my friend Karol's blog linked to perhaps the most dishonest "study" I've ever seen. My reply:

Stop trying, Toowoozy. You keep failing.

1. You're engaging in the same old fallacy that because country X's population lives to only __ years, that country Y's greater longevity means it has superior health care. It's a fallacy because it assumes every cause of death is preventable and/or treatable. Notice something at the top of the chart? "All causes." So this "study" is just another way of presenting what we already know: American life expectancy is lower because of higher homicide rates.

Try a study that is restricted to natural causes, and adjust for Americans' higher-fat, higher-cholesterol diets. Oh, that can't be done? Well, coincidentally, neither can socialized medicine -- effectively, that is.

2. Presumably he's talking only about South Korea, but to call it just "Korea" is idiotic.

And now the biggie:

3. He's a liar. He so massaged the statistics that they're meaningless.

a. He's using males against the entire population's life expectancy. We already know that American men, on average, die a bit younger than the average life expectancy for both men and women. American women have a life expectancy of about two years more, as I recall, so it's not surprising to see numbers that show American men don't live as long as the average.

To put it in simple terms for you, let's say Jack died at 78, Jill died at 80. This study would look at Jack only, then say "American health care is inferior because Jack didn't live until the average of 79!"

b. He doesn't need to use "per 100,000 males" for this kind of average. He could have easily had it "For each average male." However, he needs this lie to inflate his numbers.

According to his own numbers, it comes to 0.06397 years per American male. That's 23.35 days. The "best" country on his list, Japan, therefore comes to 13.55 days per male.

So this study proves "nothing" except that when it comes to dying, there's more gender equality in other countries.

And you're welcome for the free lesson on how to look past statistics.

Then my P.S.:

Just saw that I forgot one last thing:

You now see (or SHOULD see) that the putz is lying about his data. But let's assume he wasn't. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

His "study" would be comparing the average of 100,000 individuals to the average of that particular population. The difference would be...zero. ZERO. Do you understand that?

Always be skeptical of data that purports to prove something. I don't even ask people to trust things that I cite. Never take anything at face value, or anyone at his word, and especially question hard some clever new "analysis."

"Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment."

A Google search shows that what popped into my mind isn't original, but it is fitting. I shed no tears for Ted Kennedy, none whatsoever.

Billy Beck remembers that goddamn bastard, justly:

The horrible thing is gone now. I hope it died choking like Josef Stalin.

Note to Billy: my father always said that the existence of evil means there cannot be an omnipotent, benevolent Supreme Being, but I countered that the existence of monstrous evil is reason he should at least wonder if there's a hell. And I tell you, my friend, there is a special place reserved for the goddamn bastard.

Here's one of the pictures Yahoo News used today. I guess he was doing his "Mary Jo drowning" impersonation.



I despised Kennedy for who he was and what he did. After his brain cancer was announced, I still never developed the least bit of sympathy for him. I say openly that I can only hope he died in the most wretched misery imaginable, with the cancer spreading throughout his body such that all his systems were shutting down in excruciating pain.

No doubt that liberals will accuse me of being cold-blooded, but it was he who was so cold-blooded. No one should have to ask me what I'm referring to. I was not yet born when the "water-based incident" happened, yet I know. My father did his duty and told me when I was old enough; it would have been at least 20 years ago.

No doubt that people of varying political persuasions will say that mine is a horrible hope, that I've never known anyone who died of cancer. The truth is that I have. That's how I know it still wouldn't have been appropriate punishment for who he was and what he did.

As if we needed another example of how Republicans are so weak, Michelle Malkin writes,

Put aside your ideological differences for an appropriate moment and mark this passing with solemnity.

There is a time and place for political analysis and criticism. Not now.

Why "not now"? Expose the goddamn bastard for who he was, and tell of all the evils he did from every mountaintop. No one should have qualms to speak ill of evil, even if dead. I recently said I had no tears for Cory Aquino, and I heralded news of Molly Ivins' death with "Ding dong, the bitch is dead." I can be so blunt because I know the mere act of death does not confer respect.

This goddamn bastard was worse than both put together. Kennedy was not just any regular worshipper of the state. It was not sufficient for him to be, say, a Paul Krugman that taught people to cling to false gods. No, he had to spend virtually all of his adult life, when not too inebriated or cheating in school, in what's absurdly called "public service." It's as much "service" to the "public" as the book "To Serve Man" in the old Twilight Zone episode: the pursuit of forcing everyone to bow to the state, feeding others to the beast he so happily served. So God damn him, literally.

Nick Gillespie's wishful thinking is that Kennedy's death is "(Hopefully) of an Era." Does he honestly think it will make a difference? This was not a king who died without an heir. This was one man of hundreds "in charge" in power who share the same evil visions of subjecting man to state. Has Gillespie never noticed that when any of them die, there is always a steady supply of successors, "The Next Generation" that is worse than the one before?

Don Boudreaux, the quintessential Southern gentleman (which I can knowingly say, having had the pleasure of meeting him), rightfully expressed no grief and ably pointed out Kennedy's hypocrisy:

You report that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick supports “changing state law to allow him to appoint an interim successor to Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat while a special election is held” (”Gov. would OK law change for Kennedy successor,” August 26). You report also that only last week a dying Sen. Kennedy requested this rule change.

But you fail to mention that the very rule that Sen. Kennedy last week pleaded be scuttled is a rule that he himself lobbied for in 2004. As your own Jeff Jacoby wrote last week, “Kennedy wants the Legislature to upend the succession law it passed in 2004, when – at his urging – it stripped away the governor’s longstanding power to temporarily fill a Senate vacancy. Back then, John Kerry was a presidential candidate and Republican Mitt Romney was governor; Kennedy lobbied state Democrats to change the law so that Romney couldn’t name Kerry’s successor.”

To the very end, Mr. Kennedy displayed his lack of principles. And your paper continues to display its reporting biases.

As my father said about Ayatollah Khomeini, "I hope that bastard rots in hell!"

Anything government can do, the free market can do better

That is, anything peaceful. Government will always have comparative and absolute advantage in aggression (e.g. wars and conscription, subjecting people to "law enforcement" when they have committed no crime, and seizing people's homes).

When it comes to creating prosperity and promoting true peace (as opposed to military stalemates), the free market does it just fine on its own, because it works purely according to what individuals want and their subsequent voluntary exchanges to attain their own individual happiness. The alternative, government, works purely by forcing people against their will: decisions are made arbitrarily, and whether they are done with caprice or careful calculations, whether they are based on politics or intentions of the greatest benevolence, they are ultimately immoral for forcing the individual against his will.

Over at Three Sources, a commenter going by "Silence Dogood" defended government as able to provide the infrastructure that makes the free market possible. This is not so, and I refuted his arguments one by one, demonstrating that everything he credited to government could be supplied and supplied better by a free market.

Old Ben must be rolling in his grave at someone using his pseudonym. Like most people, "Silence" doesn't believe that it's possible for a free market to provide things like roads and other infrastructure. He outrightly refuses to believe it, not even giving the free market a chance. Now, you don't have to be Paul Krugman to worship the state; it only requires a belief that certain things -- good things -- can result only from government's direction. As Bastiat put it:

Do those worshippers of government believe that free persons will cease to act? Does it follow that if we receive no energy from the law, we shall receive no energy at all? Does it follow that if the law is restricted to the function of protecting the free use of our faculties, we will be unable to use our faculties? Suppose that the law does not force us to follow certain forms of religion, or systems of association, or methods of education, or regulations of labor, or regulations of trade, or plans for charity; does it then follow that we shall eagerly plunge into atheism, hermitary, ignorance, misery, and greed? If we are free, does it follow that we shall no longer recognize the power and goodness of God? Does it follow that we shall then cease to associate with each other, to help each other, to love and succor our unfortunate brothers, to study the secrets of nature, and to strive to improve ourselves to the best of our abilities?

And then over at Karol's, one of her guest bloggers was, shall I say, unfortunate enough to talk about credit default swaps when he doesn't really know how they work. He was even more unfortunate to talk about "reforms" and creating "transparency" in financial exchanges -- via government, so I had to set him straight. Let me just say that I know a thing or two about CDS: they're not the maligned financial instruments so many people think they are, nor are they traded with very little information. A specific CDS implicitly requires the buyer to know what he's getting into. Now, there have been cases of fraudulent misrepresentation with some Collateralized Debt Objects, but that's entirely different.

Re-read what Bastiat said above, and think of how Wall Street began. There was no law to tell certain stock traders what to do, so how did those individuals know to congregate and formalize their association? Or was it, in fact, that God has given us the ability to think, to reason, and that humans for thousands of years have been able to trade and associate voluntarily without needing overlords to direct us?

Government's record is that of the anti-Midas touch, continually ruining everything it meddles with, from charity to the financial system. In the event it ever "fixes" something, look for how it created the problem in the first place. Even then, the solution will never be as effective as keeping government at bay and letting the free market clean up the mess that the state created.

"The Conscience of a Liberal": as mythical as the unicorn

The Tagalog phrase "walang hiya ka" (which you may have seen me saying lately to some twit commenters) literally means "you have no shame" but is quite strong in connotation. It's appropriate here: Krugman has no shame whatsoever. The hypocrite and partisan hack wrote last April about "overpaid bankers." Not once did he mention Robert Rubin, who received $115 million for his 10 years on Citi's board. (In return, Rubin did the wonderful job of increasing Citi's risk-taking, contributing in no small way to its financial woes.) But his biggest hypocrisy is predicting "A fiscal train wreck" in 2003, after the second round of Bush's tax cuts.

Well, the problem was never the cut in taxes, but that Congress actually increased spending at the same time. Now that the budget has gotten Really, Really Bad, painfully obvious to anyone paying attention, what is Krugman saying? Well, as I wrote in May, when a Times op-ed says "Fiscal Suicide Ahead" while a Democrat is in the White House, you know Krugman didn't write that.

Yesterday he blogged about how the debt is bad but not that bad, with the title, "How much is $9 trillion?" What happened to the self-professed "alarmist" Krugman of 2003? If you put the two pieces side by side, there's no way in hell you could think it was the same person. The difference is obvious to anyone who understands Krugman: as long as Democrats are in power, Krugman's the Monty Python Black Knight when it comes to the burgeoning federal debt. "It's only a flesh wound!"

"But what's really scary — what makes a fixed-rate mortgage seem like such a good idea — is the looming threat to the federal government's solvency." - Paul Krugman, March 11, 2003

"Right now, federal debt is about 50% of GDP. So even if we do run these deficits, federal debt as a share of GDP will be substantially less than it was at the end of World War II. It will also be substantially less than, say, debt in several European countries in the mid to late 1990s. (There are some technical issues in comparing these various numbers — gross debt versus net (mainly about Social Security) and overall government debt versus federal, but they don’t change the basic picture.)" - Paul Krugman, August 23, 2009

My, my, what a difference an administration makes!

Actually, the picture is even worse than is commonly calculated, because the "percentage of GDP" debt ratios typically do not count the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare. When you factor in what Krugman deliberately ignores (because with a Democrat in power he doesn't want to admit it's that bad), the debt situation is far worse than World War II. Starting in 2016, Social Security payouts will exceed payroll tax revenues, and this country will see problems it never has before.

I will, though, admit that Krugman finally did get one thing right. Part of what he wrote in 2003: "But my prediction is that politicians will eventually be tempted to resolve the crisis the way irresponsible governments usually do: by printing money, both to pay current bills and to inflate away debt." Was he listening to Austrian economists at the time?

Then again, he said it only in hypocrisy. The Federal Reserve is buying up trillions of dollars of U.S. Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities, far more than it ever did in the Bush years. But while Democrats are in control of the executive and legislative branches, Krugman's criticism is nowhere to be found.

Prices are not rationing, not in any way

It's bad enough that liberals believe that "the price mechanism is a form of rationing goods and services," leading to their argument that health care can't be worse if government rations it. (Note that some liberals deny that government-run health care will be or will require rationing, demonstrating that one side is lying, and the other is a bunch of fools.) We have enough of these idiots in the world. We don't need twits like McArdle, who dare to call themselves "libertarian," who also believe that prices are rationing.

The plain fact is that prices are not rationing. I always meant to link to my comment at QandO a month ago but never got around to it. I reproduced it here, which you should check out for my latest exposé of McArdle's idiocy.

Slightly clarified, let me explain that it is a pure fallacy that a price system is "still rationing."� Prices allocate who gets goods and services, but that is not the same as "rationing." Rationing implies an attempt at equal shares, whether an individual's consumption over time or a population's aggregate consumption, whereas allocation can and often is unequal. Rationing is a system that forcibly controls demand, no matter that buyers are able and willing to pay what suppliers ask. By contrast, allocation by price means that whoever has the ability and willingness to pay (that is, for what sellers have and at their asking price) will buy what he wants, based purely on his own perception of his needs and desires.

Now, any distribution of goods and services by government depends 100% on rationing. There's no way about it, because government creates nothing on net. As Bastiat taught us 160 years ago, it can produce nothing except by taking an equal amount from the private sector. So government's resources are finite by definition, and because government distributes on the arbitrary basis of politics rather than someone's ability and willingness to pay, government must try to institute some sort of rationing system so that supply does not exceed demand.

We can see how well that works with Social Security and Medicare, which the NCPA reported two months ago have "unfunded liabilities" of $107 trillion, as of 2009! The NCPA reported in 2008 that the unfunded liabilities were $101.7 trillion then. Year-on-year, the unfunded liabilities grew at over a third the size of the current U.S. economy. This, clearly, is not sustainable. But did we really expect government to be "efficient" when it steals from Peter to give to Paul? At some point Peter will have to be taxed more, and/or Paul will have to accept less.

It would be nice to live in a world of infinite resources, but we don't. Given the choice between government choosing how much to give me, and the freedom to pay for it myself, there's no question for me: as someone who is an economic producer, I'd much rather depend on myself. At least it's up to me to develop my talents to improve my situation in life and afford more (including health care). Therefore I have influence over how much I earn, perhaps not complete influence, but I can't say I have any influence at all over how much a bureaucrat will decide to give me.

I make no excuses whatsoever for liking that "money talks."� It's precisely how people can get the resources they need badly and when they need them, instead of waiting for "their turn." This summer, both my wife and I had to go to the doctor for insect bites. My wife's developed a bacterial infection, and some bug gave me a virus that left me lethargic with terrible chills. We've never had anything like those before in our lives, but no matter, we paid cash. Because the doctor required payment, it allocated his limited time only to those who deemed it worthwhile to pay his fees. Quite modest fees, too. Thinking about his costs of taxes, paying the staff, maintaining the building, I wonder how much he really made. But it was clearly a beneficial trade for him, and for us. Government could never perform such a marvelous feat.

Imagine if (when?) Obama and Co. get their dream of an Canada-like system with 100% government-provided health care and a ban on private care. It was patently obvious to me at 17 years old, when the Clintons were pushing for universal health care, that everyone would want a doctor's appointment for the slightest cough, since "after all it's free." Meanwhile, "saving money in the system" -- like Obama's recent rubbish of "rewarding doctors for quality, not just the quantity, of care that they provide" -- will mean government reducing what it pays to health professionals, driving them out of the health care system into other jobs, further reducing supply and increasing wait times.

But no matter, right? Just wait your turn for a "free" appointment. We can look at the present UK system for how we'll develop: in some cases, that appointment will only be with your undertaker. "The doctor will not be seeing you now...or ever."

The silencing of Willie Revillame

Previous:
No tears here for Cory Aquino
You have nothing to apologize for, Willie Revillame

(Updated 11:45 p.m.)

What more proof does any rational person need? Democracy is all about subjecting the individual to tyranny. Now, it happens to involve a tyranny of the majority (or a voting plurality), but tyranny is tyranny nonetheless, whether the rule is by one, a thousand, or a billion people. That Willie Revillame has been silenced is only the latest example. It's downright tragic how it came at the "outrage" from the majority of Filipinos, whipped into a frenzy by their masters (especially the powerful Cojuangcos and Aquinos).

What I heard tonight on TV Patrol World (a decent news roundup on the Philippines' ABS-CBN channel, but I see it half a day after the original airing) was that Willie was taking a "voluntary" "leave" -- but the fact is that it's as "voluntary" as handing a wallet to a mugger so that you aren't shot. This, though, reports it as a "suspension," which implies it wasn't Willie's decision. I wonder if that person actually watched either the Wowowee episode or the news broadcast, because he calls Willie's statement an "outburst."

It was hardly an outburst. Here's a transcript of what he said, which shows Willie's excellent point: how is he supposed to host a game show, implicitly about happy and fun times, when they're showing footage of Aquino's funeral in the corner?

But what Willie said is a red herring. Even if he did have an "outburst," the government has no right to silence him. Willie has the right to express himself -- God-given rights don't appear and disappear just because you cross or are within certain borders -- and if his employers (the station managers and owners) don't like it, then they can fire him. If everyone else doesn't like it, they can change the channel, they can insult him, but they have no right to force him to be silent. Unfortunately that isn't what happens in the Philippines. As I pointed out in the previous entry on Willie, the Philippine national government's Movie and Television Review and Classification Board has the power to shut down, fine, and even imprison a person for what they deem "objectionable." And that's what's happened to Willie (again).

There's no simple irony here, but outright hypocrisy that Cory Aquino's supporters want to use this law. They are without shame, every last one of them. Ferdinand Marcos made the law in 1985 by presidential decree, as I pointed out. Aquino, that alleged champion of Philippine democracy for overthrowing the Marcos regime, made no effort to repeal the law, and now her supporters have no problem using it themselves. Hypocrites!

Kris Aquino, a good friend of Willie's, accepted his early apology but refused to comment further. That's a lot of class on her part, and her family would do well to follow her lead. Also featured on TV Patrol World was this bastard, "Senator" Noynoy Aquino, claiming he doesn't want the issue to continue. What a miserable son of a bitch, smiling smugly. Good lord, most Filipinos have no clue how easily they're being manipulated.

"Arrogance can help you end your career." This is true, but what MissAiE doesn't appear to understand is that people should be free to hang themselves. If you don't like it, change the channel and/or complain to the station. Don't be so eager to trample on other's rights, don't be such a mini-tyrant, that you want to use the force of government to silence someone with whom you disagree.

And again, it's not just irony, but outright hypocrisy being displayed by Aquino supporters. Look at the fools here, calling for a boycott of Wowowee not in support of Willie, but to oust him:

I'm with you Even Demata in your advocacy to punish the man who killed democracy in television as the late President Corzon Aquino initiated to us a couple of years ago. Let us join hands to boycot this show not only tomorrow but remove it in our watching habit. According to willie, this is only a simple matter, but for us filipinos who also fought for democracy with the late president, this is unfair and truly a disrespect to the mother of democracy.

How did Willie "kill democracy in television"? How does he force anyone to watch him? And there we go again, that "democracy" word. They know enough Filipinos don't care enough to affect the show: they'd value Willie's suspension about as much as a carabao dung heap. That's why they have to claim "disrespect" and have government do their dirty work.

I scoff at these people who claim things like they "fought with" Cory Aquino. There's a version of an old joke in the Philippines. "How much is a billion?" "The number of Filipinos who claim to have been in the Bataan Death March."

Aquino supporters have been flooding websites like this with their anti-Willie diatribes, which is their right. At the same time, though, they don't believe others have the right to disagree. At first they'll use mob tactics to try to intimidate opponents (remember what they did here on the Eidelblog, hypocritically denouncing my freedom of speech when I allow them to mostly exercise theirs on my turf?), and if that doesn't work, they'll use government.

Yeah. If any of them make it to the United States, they'd make perfect Democrats.

You have nothing to apologize for, Willie Revillame

(Updated 10:08 p.m. with a few extra links I found.)

"It's not good for us to have fun here while the whole country grieves. I cannot make people laugh at the same time that this part of the funeral of our former president is being shown."

Willie was absolutely correct, but for making that objective and true comment, he could now be the most hated man in the Philippines. He has earned my respect, though, for daring to question the establishment, for daring to split from the tens of millions of Filipinos worshipping a woman who did plenty of damage on her own to her own country.

Willie has now apologized, under considerable pressure from the ABS-CBN network that broadcasts his show, not to mention the politicians looking to censor him. I hope he was 100% insincere about it. The letters to TV Patrol World were as contemptuous as I've ever heard, saying Willie should be "taught humility" and outrightly calling for government involvement.

The Aquino family spokesman said, "It is regrettable and a crass attempt to desecrate the memory of the beloved Tita Cory." How? From any perspective, he was simply saying the funeral video was inappropriate to the game show.

Ricardo Lo of the Philippine Star made a half-assed defense, acknowledging Willie was correct but saying Willie was still "disrespectful." That reminds me, in the opposite way, of Louis Farrakhan defending one of his cronies with faint criticism: "While I stand by the truths that he spoke, I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented."

And here are 14448 idiots (and counting) who are "petitioning" online to have Willie removed. They're not calling for a voluntarily boycott of viewers, they're calling for government to step in! "I am calling the attention of the MTRCB to be more vigilant, so that this lowest form of personal attack by a tv showbiz talk show host, for her/his personal agenda, will not happen again"

This is the law he's being threatened with, Presidential Decree 1986, made on October 5, 1985, that created the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. Previous government censorship wasn't sufficient, so they created a new body:

Section 3. Powers and Functions. - The BOARD shall have the following functions, powers and duties:

a) To promulgate such rules and regulations as are necessary or proper for the implementation of this Act, and the accomplishment of its purposes and objectives, including guidelines and standards for production, advertising and titles. Such rules and regulations shall take effect after fifteen (15) days following their publication in newspapers of general circulation in the Philippines;

b) To screen, review and examine all motion pictures as herein defined, television programs, including publicity materials such as advertisements, trailers and stills, whether such motion pictures and publicity materials be for theatrical or non-theatrical distribution, for television broadcast or for general viewing, imported or produced in the Philippines, and in the latter case, whether they be for local viewing or for export;

c) To approve or disapprove, delete objectionable portions from and/or prohibit the importation, exportation, production, copying, distribution, sale, lease, exhibition and/or television broadcast of the motion pictures, television programs and publicity materials subject of the preceding paragraph, which, in the judgment of the board applying contemporary Filipino cultural values as standard, are objectionable for being immoral, indecent, contrary to law and/or good customs, injurious to the prestige of the Republic of the Philippines or its people, or with a dangerous tendency to encourage the commission of violence or of wrong or crime, such as but not limited to:

i) Those which tend to incite subversion, insurrection, rebellion or sedition against the State, or otherwise threaten the economic and/or political stability of the State;

ii) Those which tend to undermine the faith and confidence of the people in their government and/or the duly constituted authorities;

iii) Those which glorify criminals or condone crimes;

iv) Those which serve no other purpose but to satisfy the market for violence or pornography;

v) Those which tend to abet the traffic in and use of prohibited drugs;

vi) Those which are libelous or defamatory to the good name and reputation of any person, whether living or dead; and

vii) Those which may constitute contempt of court or of any quasi-judicial tribunal, or pertain to matter which are sub-judice in nature.

Section 11. Penalty. - Any person who violates the provisions of this Decree and/or the implementing rules and regulations issued by the BOARD, shall, upon conviction, be punished by a mandatory penalty of three (3) months and one day to one (1) year imprisonment plus a fine of not less than fifty thousand pesos but not more than one hundred thousand pesos. The penalty shall apply whether the person shall have committed the violation either as principal, accomplice or accessory. If the offender is an alien, he shall be deported immediately. The license to operate the movie house, theater, or television station shall also be revoked. Should the offense be committed by a juridical person, the chairman, the president, secretary, treasurer, or the partner responsible therefore, shall be the persons penalized.

There you have raw, unadulterated tyranny in the guise of protecting public morality and people's good names. The board's chairman directly said, "It's really a violation of PD 1986 and the [Kapisanan ng Brodkaster ng Pilipinas] Code. He should have had respect. He should gone off air."

Notice the date: Marcos made the decree! In 24 years, Cory Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo never so much as suggested repealing the law. And why not? Because they're all the same. Because no matter what post-Marcos presidents claim about "democracy," they will use Marcos' own methods of using government to silence anyone critical or "disrespectful." And Filipinos generally want to have so much "pride" in their country and famous kababayan (the equivalent of "paisan") that most of the lot think this is a good law. Remember how, in their blind worship, they spammed my blog and villified me on their own forums, just for daring to call someone "overrated." It's still a nation where you can hand out a few pesos apiece to children, and you'll instantly have a thousand protesters to make your cause look good.

Ayn Rand's observation is continually and everywhere proved true: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

"Tita" Cory, bah. She was no more "Tita" to the nation than Mussolini was "Zio Benito" to his own. Does that mean I can never enter the Philippines again?

"Führer" Bloomberg's hypocrisy: because "some pigs are more equal than others"

"Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has pushed an ambitious green agenda and cast himself as a national environmental leader, routinely runs afoul of his own anti-pollution policy by letting his official SUVs idle, sometimes for more than an hour."

Did we expect something different?

"All pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal than others."

Another MSM lie: "Stocks end mostly higher after Fed assessment"

As I've pointed out before, the mainstream media spins any economic news as the end of the world while a Republican is in the White House, and it glosses over bad economic news or rewrites it as "Not too bad" once a Democrat takes over.

Today's headline "Stocks end mostly higher after Fed assessment" is so utterly dishonest, as is customary with anything from the MSM. If this had been several months ago, the headline would have read something like, "Stocks lose rally steam after Fed announcement." Let's take a look at what really happened:







The plain and simple fact is that once the Fed made its announcements, stocks dipped. The only reason the NASDAQ and S&P 500 ended higher than their opening is because, unlike the DJIA, they didn't dip enough to erase the gains from earlier. They didn't crash, but the NASDAQ and S&P 500 indices closed at around 1% from today's peaks, and the DJIA closed nearly 1.5% off its peak.

Despite all this, the meaningful indicators are of movements in U.S. bond markets. For example:



This tells you something. The Fed released a statement today at 2:15:

The prices of energy and other commodities have risen of late. However, substantial resource slack is likely to dampen cost pressures, and the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time.

Investors overall clearly didn't believe that, evidenced by the sudden afternoon spike in the 10-year's rate. For months now, I've been pointing out that the Fed is creating money out of thin air to inflate the money supply, which inevitably results in inflation. We're in trouble, but most Americans have no idea what's coming.

Indeed, "prices of energy and other commodities have risen of late." I pointed out three months ago that the Fed's pumping of new dollars into the economy is the reason, the only significant reason, that this is happening.

So much for "the most open and transparent" administration

A White House blog post, January 20th: "Transparency -- President Obama has committed to making his administration the most open and transparent in history, and WhiteHouse.gov will play a major role in delivering on that promise."

The headline yesterday: "Obama blocks list of visitors to White House"

Now why wouldn't they want the public to know who's coming to dinner? Jeremiah Wright? Bill Ayers? This reporter Dedman had better not dig too deeply, or this Chicago-rooted administration will do a Vince Foster and make him just like his name sounds.

Just this once, I wish Islamic terrorists had succeeded

Target: Jimmy Carter. Supposedly. It could just be an attempt by Hamas to look like "good guys" to the ignorant.

"Nobody in Gaza will touch this man [Carter]," Hamas adviser Ahmed Yousef said. "He is on a noble mission. Everyone here respects him."

That there speaks volumes.

But like the exchange in "A Few Good Men" where Kaffee asked Jessup why the transfer was necessary if he'd given an order, if nobody in Gaza would touch Carter, then where did the bomb come from?

Sotomayor: perfect for the Supreme Court

Blogging's been a little light now that the weather is warmer and daylight hours are longer, but this is a topic I might as well jump into. Ever since her nomination, I've realized something: Sotomayor is perfect for the Supreme Court. Say that just as Abe Vigoda did in "The Godfather": perfect.

But don't misunderstand why I say that. This is the Court that tramples all over private property rights (ask Susan Kelo) and states' rights (ask Angel Raich). So Sotomayor, who thinks your skin color helps make better decisions and ruled on the side of an extortionist, will be a great fit. She'll continue in Souter's best anti-liberty tradition, and she'll be a credit to the Court that tramples all over individuals' rights. Heaven forbid you want to alleviate your cancer pain in a way that harms no one else, or keep and dispose of your own property as you see fit; such things are everyone's business to decide for you.

The simple truth is that Sotomayor is a racist bigot. There's no possible way to spin what she said:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

So much for blind, impartial justice. Sotomayor can't even be objective when it comes to language! Liberals like her will call someone "wise" when agreeing, and decry someone as "unwise" when disagreeing.

There is one exception. "National origin" can count in that a true American can have one prejudice and one alone, that of advancing toward liberty.

Someone once said, "I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown." Oh, that was also Sotomayor -- in the same speech.

"Fiscal Suicide Ahead" - and you know Krugman didn't write that

It was David Brook's op-ed of a few days ago.

Paul Krugman predicted "A Fiscal Train Wreck" back in 2003. So where are Krugman's criticisms of Obama's proposals, which will hike spending and debt (including quadrupling the worst of any deficits this decade) beyond anything under George W. Bush?

Oh, that's right, Democrats are in control now. Though Krugman had thrown his lot in with Hillary, he still won't say anything against the fundamentally identical nature of Obama's spending orgy -- except maybe, as Don Luskin points out, that Obama isn't being liberal enough.

When liberals want to make things "fair," watch out

It goes without saying that it's unfair for the self-employed to pay taxes on their own health insurance, while businesses get tax breaks. But "unfair" is seen differently by different people. What's truly unfair ends at that comma: that anyone should be coerced into giving up his property involuntarily, for the support of others favored by the government.

Now, what is the Senate Finance Committee looking to do about this "unfairness"? Well, to finance all the new health care proposals, they need to raise hundreds of billions a year in new taxes, and one way is to taxing businesses on what they pay for health insurance. Obama again shows his complete hypocrisy. He's leaning toward this, yet he denounced McCain in last fall's debates, because McCain proposed this but offset by an individual tax credit (i.e. the government invents a convoluted way to charge you less, or take your money and return it to you, so that you feel grateful).

A child might compare this to Morgana, Ali Baba's servant, who saw a mark on their door and so similarly marked all other doors on the street. A thinking, comprehending mind would realize that this is looking at two men, one with both of his legs and another with only one, and that "making it fair" means cutting off one of the first man's legs.

Nothing could better epitomize Harrison Bergeron's world.

Another mainstream media whitewashing

The original headline: "Obama's court pick to be shaped by his experience"

As of right now, Google searches show the headline once existed, but some news sites already sport the rewrite:



This isn't the first time I've caught the MSM rewriting their stuff.

The rewrite is because the original headline, of course, begets the question, what experience? Now, I'm not one to push "experience" as a qualification for someone to wield power over 300 million people. God knows there are some "inexperienced" people who know about true freedom, who'd do better in public office by not wielding the power that other people would. However, I'm showing liberals' hypocrisy by their own standard, because they tout Obama as some super-qualified messiah who will save us. "Community organizer" and all that, remember.