Politics & Current Events Politics & Current Events Archives
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The Disingenuous Rhetoric of Balance
S&P has finally downgraded its rating of US government debt, once considered the safest investment you could make. The government’s cost of borrowing will inevitably increase, as will interest rates tied to government securities. And not least, it’s a major blow to American ego. So who’s to blame? For Democrats, blame lies with Republicans who [...] -
Resumption of Indulgences Triggers Fears of Grace Inflation
ROME – With church membership still down after two centuries of recession, officials at the Vatican Reserve in 2009 announced the resumption of indulgences, a policy dubbed “Plenary Easing”, to spur church recovery. Two years in, however, some are beginning to question its effectiveness. Since 2009, the value of the Plenary Indulgence has fallen 17% [...] -
In Defense of the Tennessee Firefighters
Firefighters last month stood by as an unpaid house burned, protecting paying neighbors. However one defines public goods, this event obviously removes fire protection from that class. So should the firefighters be condemned or commended? -
Castro Presents Democrats a Golden Opportunity
The Democratic party finds itself in a pickle. Poised to lose control of Congress this November, their congressional campaigns all reek of the desperation that characterized Republican campaigns in 2006. A few miles south, Cuba finds itself in even more dire economic straits than the US. The drastic step of cutting 10% of the government workforce was just announced, in the hope that a private economy can spring up where none has existed for decades… -
Conservatism and the Regulatory House of Cards
I’ve alluded to the regulatory house of cards before, specifically with regard to net neutrality. The basic idea is one of unintended consequences: starting from a state of freedom, the government sees a problem real or imagined and tries to fix it by fiat. Of course, this perverts incentives and makes for new problems, which [...] -
China’s Dilemma Revisited
China is on everyone’s minds now, not only because they send us cheap imports, but because Americans are increasingly dissatisfied with this arrangement. The crux of the issue is China’s currency policy, which most of the world believes is set “too low” – effectively making China’s exports cheaper than they would otherwise be in terms of other currencies. The US is not the only one upset either, for the sake of its trade balance… -
The Stimulus: Beyond “Worked” and “Failed”
$787 billion worth of fiscal stimulus to get the economy back on track, and the best volley Conservatives can lobby is that it didn’t work. With the Obama administration’s widely off-the-mark estimates as to the unemployment rate with or without the stimulus (the actual job losses exceeded the estimates without the stimulus), the debate now [...] -
For Sensible Deregulation: Why We Need Net Neutrality (for now)
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Soviet Union was in trouble. It had been on a protracted economic slide for many years, and showed no sign of lifting. Mikhael Gorbachev, leader at the time, fancied himself a reformer, and went on a spree of deregulation and privatization. But coming from such a regulated environment, the sweeps of deregulation were not – and could not be – total. People were free to do things they were not before, but the perverse incentives still existed. The house of regulatory cards collapsed… -
Pat Robertson’s Year End Prophetic Review
Pat Robertson, January 2008:
“he said oil would reach $150 a barrel – the price hit $100 on Wednesday – with the dollar continuing to lose value in 2008.”Reality, October 2008:
“Crude has now fallen about 40% since surging to an all-time record $147.27 a barrel on July 11.”… -
The Auto Crisis and Car Commercials
Surely by now every American is aware of the collapsed credit market and the imploding American auto industry. So what are the automakers telling us to quell our fears?
(WARNING: The sample of commercials is non-representative and based on two nights of watching an hour of TV.)Honda was subtly and soothingly reassuring, with a hypnotically calm voice:
“Rest assured that now, as always, you can still get low APR financing.*”
*for well qualified buyers… -
Don’t Vote
No, seriously. As wonderful as civic duty is, there’s also civic responsibility. If you plan on voting in November, answer the following questions out loud before reading on:
Who are the two major party candidates?
Who are you voting for this November?
Why?If you could not answer the third question, don’t vote. If your answer for the third question was “I can relate to him” or “the other guy’s eletist”, do not vote…
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Neither Party Stands for Change
Change is the official buzzword of the 2008 Presidential Election. Everyone likes to throw it around: Obama started the craze with a series of high-minded-sounding but empty slogans, and now the word has even been co-opted by John McCain, seeking to recover his maverick image. But what exactly are we changing from? Partisan politics and [...] -
Partisan Media and the Radical Left
Lest you think I’m going to be giving the Democratic base a break while I bite the Republicans, this bit of fun has been going around various left-wing blogs. Liberal bloggers have collectively lambasted Obama for appearing on Fox News without a confrontation and undoing all their work to “delegitimize the network”. Delegitimize the network. [...] -
Why the Republicans Can’t Keep a Good Candidate
This time I’ll give the answer first and explain it later: Groupthink. Why did Mitt Romney’s campaign fall apart? Because no one believed him when he said he was conservative. Despite having made a living off of rescuing companies from debt and being one of the most economically conservative of the bunch, his socially liberal [...] -
China’s Dilemma of Economic Sustainability
Note: a deeper analysis has now been written. Please refer to that one instead. Skyrocketing macroeconomy. Massive production glut. Artificially low wages. Déjà Vu? American businesses in the 1920s caught a wave of technological advance. Ford’s assembly line technology was catching on everywhere, and workers were becoming more and more unnecessary as automated machines replaced [...] -
Ridicule, Scare Tactics, and Piracy on Campus
More than logic, more than emotional appeal and more than fear of punishment, there’s nothing like ridicule to kill an idea. People fear looking stupid in many cases more than they fear consequences – after all, you could go down as a martyr. And where’s the fun in that for the status quo power? It [...]