A stunning and depressing portrait of dictatorship run amuck. Critics say it’s the ultimate free market. Those critics don’t know what they’re talking about. Dictatorship and slavery are not free markets.

I wonder if all the right-wing bigmouths who said Obama was a pussy about the pirate issue will shut up now that three pirates are dead and the captain rescued.

Probably not…

Update: Boortz gives Obama credit after criticizing him last week. Good for him.

As our government grows bigger and, as a result, less effective, we’re going to see more stories like this, in which Hawaiians repaired a road faster and cheaper than the government would have.

Here’s a question. Why is that every missive I read about the high cost of college only demands more federal payouts? This is in sharp contrast to complaints about … oh, let’s say … drug prices … which demand that the evil evil drug companies take huge cuts in prices and profits. Or the evil evil healthcare providers, who should take a haircut on their fees.

Read this article about how the federal government, through bad legislation, is going to have to pay out $8 billion to paper companies for burning fossil fuels they don’t need to.

And people think they should be running healthcare.

Check out the last story here. Any system that would do such a thing is fundamentally broken.

Time has an interesting portrait. I disagree with Krugman on a lot — to the extent that my degree in physics allows me to disagree with a man who has won the Nobel Prize in Economics. But my respect-o-meter has gone up with his relentless criticism of the Obama Administration. He may be wrong, but he’s no hack.

One of the few conservatives to stand up to Bush lets fly on the AIG business and the Republicans who supported the tax hike:

Ironically, Barack Obama may save the Republicans from their own craven cowardice. He and his advisers have signaled that the administration has serious problems with the confiscatory tax bill–including doubts about its constitutionality. Liberal legal scholar Lawrence Tribe thinks the 90% tax might violate the Constitution’s prohibition against bills of attainder–laws that single out specific people for punishment. It’s appalling that 85 Republican congressmen never gave any thought to this consideration in their rush to pander to ignorant fools.

The worsening of the government’s budget deficit virtually ensures that higher taxes will be required in the not too distant future. When that day comes, Republicans will undoubtedly claim that anti-tax purity prevents them from supporting such action. However, in the case of 85 House members this won’t be the case. We already know what they are; it’s just a question of negotiating the price.

No Republicans voted for the stimulus package. 85 voted for the unconstitutional AIG clawback. What does that tell you about the GOP?

Scott Sumner:

It seems to me that in economics (and to a lesser extent in fields like criminology) there is a distinction between what might be called a “common sense worldview” and an “economistic worldview.” Consider the following common sense worldviews:

1. People don’t respond very strongly to economic incentives. (I.e., higher prices don’t discourage consumption by very much, and higher taxes don’t reduce peoples’ work effort very much.)

2. Imported goods, immigrant labor, and automation all tend to increase the unemployment rate.

3. Most companies have a lot of control over prices. (I.e. oil companies set prices, not “the market”.)

4. Policy disputes over taxes and regulations are best thought of in terms of who gains and who loses.

5. Experts are smarter than the crowd.

6. Speculators make market prices more unstable.

7. Price gouging hurts consumers.

I define the economistic worldview as essentially the mirror image of the preceding seven assertions: incentives matter much more than one would expect; imports, immigrants, and automation do not raise the unemployment rate, prices are primarily determined by market forces, tax and regulatory policies often have little overall effect on income distribution, and a big effect on efficiency, the crowd (or market) is smarter than the expert, speculators tend to stabilize prices, and price gouging is socially beneficial. As you can no doubt tell, I use the term “common sense” in a derogatory way, much as a snobbish 19th century lady might have used the term “common.”

The Myth of the Rational Voter gets into this too. The thing is, most of what Sumner says here is pretty uncontroversial in economic circles and pretty out of the mainstream in political ones. The disconnect between rational worldviews of economics is one of the big drivers of economic turmoil.

Update: It just occurred to me that a perfect illustration of point #1 came from our President last night when he laughably asserted that reducing the deductibility of charitable contributions would not hurt charities at all. It was an unusually dumb thing for him to say.

Obama on why he didn’t respond immediately to the AIG business: “It took me a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I say something.”

I really don’t see how the commentariat can keep up their meme that Obama can’t talk without a teleprompter. Having watched the debates and the press conferences, I think he’s consistently better when he extemporizes.