Do you want to know the difference between a real conservative and fake one? A real conservative would want the people who knowingly shipped contaminated peanut butter to go to prison.
Category Archives: Politics
Monday Linkorama
Think of these kinds of government cramdowns as doing it on the faux-cheap. It looks inexpensive, because the government isn’t shelling out directly. But making things artificially cheap by hiding the pricetag from yourself encourages you to do things you oughtn’t–just ask the current holders of “investment” properties purchased with “innovative” mortgages. In the end, the bill always comes due–and the accrued interest is usually a killer.
I really hope the rumors that the NYT will hire her to replace the disgusting Bill Kristol are true. McArdle is one sharp lady.
The Grateful Dead did this for years. Too bad no one at RIAA has learned the lesson.
Not too long ago, conservatives were thought of as the locus of creative thought. Conservative think tanks (full disclosure: I was one of the three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation) were thought of as cutting-edge, offering conservative solutions to national problems. By the 2008 elections, the very idea of ideas had been rejected. One who listened to Barry Goldwater’s speeches in the mid-’60s, or to Reagan’s in the ’80s, might have been struck by their philosophical tone, their proposed (even if hotly contested) reformulation of the proper relationship between state and citizen. Last year’s presidential campaign, on the other hand, saw the emergence of a Republican Party that was anti-intellectual, nativist, populist (in populism’s worst sense) and prepared to send Joe the Plumber to Washington to manage the nation’s public affairs.
Kids In The Factory
I have to credit to a liberal when he acknowledges reality:
Nicholas Kristof writes a depressing column about Cambodian kids who spend their days picking through giant heaps of garbage seeking usable scraps and dreaming of the day when they might be able to work in a sweatshop. I think it’s wrong to say that all consideration of international labor standards is merely aimed at keeping people stuck on the trash heap, but it’s a valuable reminder about the generally limited ability of just saying “no” to things to accomplish what people want. Part of the reason sweatshops exist and attract laborers is that life on the garbage heap is even worse, as is the life of a third world subsistence farmer. If you want to improve things, you need to actually be expanding the set of feasible options, not just arbitrarily closing down one path. And this happens in a variety of fields. Some neighborhoods in DC seem to have the idea that if they put tight restrictions on opening new chain stores or bars and restaurants that this will magically conjure up a diverse mom-and-pop economy. In practice, you get empty storefronts; crowded, mediocre bars and restaurants; and people driving to chain stores in the suburbs.
In both cases, there’s nothing wrong with the objective. But it’s a mistake to think that purely by vetoing stuff you can force the kind of positive action you want. To raise actual labor conditions in the third world, we need to create more prosperity and more economic opportunity not just say “no” to particular forms of bad conditions.
This is the argument that libertarians have been making for decades. My particular favorite lesson on this subject was when the libs got children banned from the textile industry in Bangladesh. The children went back to the sex trade.
Bushisms
Slate lists the top 25. I drives me nuts when Bush’s defenders — his few remaining defenders — claim that he’s a good president but a bad public speaker.
Effective communication is part of the job description, guys. Reagan was able to advance a conservative agenda, in part, because he could persuade the American people to support it.
Well, that and he wasn’t a unprincipled shill only interested in defeating the other party.
Monday Night Linkorama
Snowfall Linkorama
As the snow comes down here in lovely PA, I find myself reading the following:
Bush leaves to his successor two unfinished wars, Osama bin Laden living in an unstable Pakistan, a U.S. reputation soiled by Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and torture, a deep recession and what is sure to be the first $1 trillion-plus deficit. In short, a gigantic mess, all the bigger for the peace, prosperity and black ink he inherited.
…
Bush both grew the government and gave laissez-faire a bad name, overseeing a rash of corporate scandals in 2002 and the housing meltdown. The financial wreckage has many fathers, but Bush, the first MBA president, stands among them, failing to restrain the liquidity bubble as it ballooned and asking for $700 billion to rescue banks as it burst. The GOP is fractured and adrift.
“Bush has really destroyed small-government conservatism,” said David Boaz, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute.
Read the whole thing.
Balto
Th only thing that surprises me about the Baltimore Mayor being indicted for corruption is that the Governor wasn’t indicted too.
Preserves
Evil planet-destroying George Bush has vastly exanded marine nature reserves. But that won’t fit in with the narrative.
Aged
CNN projects what Obama will look like in eight years. It does seem that we age our Presidents something fierce. That’s what comes from being a little tin god.
Fun exercise: assuming Obama is re-elected, come back to this page in 2016 and see how accurate it is.
Monday Night Linkorama
New Year’s Linkorama
Housing Crash
What does it say when an 18% drop in home prices returns them all the way back to … March 2004? That we were in a bubble. No one seems to comprehend this basic truth.