Deidre McClosky

I cannot say this better, take it away, Dr McClosky:

...when your intellectual range is from M-N you think you are being open minded when you look at M and you look at N, but you certainly don't see A or Z.

Saturday Night Live Lampoons Reid Pelosi On Stimulus Plan

Saturday Night Live Lampoons Reid Pelosi On Stimulus Plan

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Stimulus, because all economies have performance issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEDIyztZGBA&eurl=http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/&feature=player_embedded

Amazon's Customer service number

I didn't know there was one, but it's
1-800-201-7575

Go dogs go!

Conservative Democrats in the House are pushing back against their leaders’ economic stimulus plan even as President Obama steps up his push for the spending package.

To paraphrase my BIL -- who won't like this post -- "Do it like a Blue Dog!"

How Amazon.com is thriving in a horrendous retail climate.

If you and your housemates buy more than two items a month from Amazon, you should consider subscribing. Be warned, though, that Prime membership will alter how you think about shopping. These days, whenever I become cognizant of some need that would ordinarily require an unplanned trip to the store—when I want a bathroom hook, a shelving system for my closet, a new wireless router, or a discount pack of kitchen sponges—I check Amazon first. It's usually faster to order the item there and get it shipped for free than to add the thing to my shopping list. With Prime, you don't really need a shopping list.

Prime membership sure will. One click and your book/item shows up two days later. How to develop bad habits.

Instapundit: stimulus bill harmful over long term

the Congressional Budget Office says the stimulus bill will be harmful over the long term: “President Obama’s economic recovery package will actually hurt the economy more in the long run than if he were to do nothing, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday. CBO, the official scorekeepers for legislation, said the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.” I don’t think there’s much long-term thinking going on in Congress or the White House, though . . .

Here's the CBO report itself:
http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/96xx/doc9619/Gregg.pdf

Less Keynes, More Hayek

Something everyone from Scott Allen to Sarah Palin can agree with!

Nobel economist Friedrich Hayek gets more ink in the Wall Street Journal today than he has in a long time in an op-ed on the “stimulus” bill being debated in Congress. And rightfully so, considering his arch rival John Maynard Keynes is getting more air time than he has since the last time politicians sought cover for a massive power and wealth grab.

Hayek and Keynes had a famous (well, famous for economists) debate over Keynes’ theories. FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey returns to his previous career as an economics professor and provides a lesson everyone on Capitol Hill should read.

Armey notes:

Keynes’s thinking was a decisive departure from classical economics, because arbitrary “macro” constructs like aggregate demand had no basis in the microeconomic science of human action. As Hayek observed, “some of the most orthodox disciples of Keynes appear consistently to have thrown overboard all the traditional theory of price determination and of distribution, all that used to be the backbone of economic theory, and in consequence, in my opinion, to have ceased to understand any economics.”

Professor Armey also reminds us of one of the central insights from the Public Choice school or economics:

A father of public choice economics, Nobel laureate James Buchanan, argues that the great flaw in Keynesianism is that it ignores the obvious, self-interested incentives of government actors implementing fiscal policy and creates intellectual cover for what would otherwise be viewed as self-serving and irresponsible behavior by politicians.

Armey continues:

It’s clear why Keynes’s popularity endures in Congress. Intellectual cover for a spending spree will always be appreciated there. But it’s harder to see any justification for the perverse form of fiscal child abuse that heaps massive debts on future generations.

Which leads to the conclusion:

The charade of the current stimulus package, chockablock with earmarks to favored pet constituencies and virtually devoid of national policy considerations, is the logical consequence of Keynesianism in action. It is about politics and power, not sound economics, and I believe that the American people will reject it.

The Washington Post toda reports “Senate Lacks Votes to Pass Stimulus.”

The 1,000-plus FreedomWorks activists who called Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on 1-866-928-0525 asking him to oppose the stimulus had something to do with that.

Were you one of them?

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Daschle

"Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." --then-Sen. Tom Daschle on 7 May 1998

I got nuthin. Absoflippinlutely nothing.

Will the 'stimulus' work

No, I'm not being obnoxious. Well, I'm not only being obnoxious; the 'stimulus', at least initially, is mostly going to preserve jobs, not stimulate new ones.

Ah, but here's Megan McArdle:
There are really two quite separate debates going on over the stimulus, but they're being jumbled together into one gigantic ad hominem. My take on both--pardon for being perhaps a tad obvious, but I think the debate has had a tendency to wander off into the weeds, so it's useful to be a little general from time to time:

Question #1 Will a fiscal stimulus work?

Define "work". If the question is "Can borrowing money and spending it increase our measured GDP figure?" then yes, it is trivially true that stimulus "works". So why don't we borrow a zillion dollars and spend all of it? We could quadruple our standard of living overnight?

Y'all can read the rest here:http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/dissecting_the_stimulus_debate.php

Ben Stein via the American Spectator

A Bleak Day

By Ben Stein on 1.29.09 @ 9:31AM

I love this. The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the HR to pass a bill spending $820 billion, or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate.
He's a-talkin' about the stimulus, Mr. Stein is.
Only ten per cent of the "stimulus" to be spent on 2009.
Which still bids fair to light off a really hard to control inflation at a time when we're blessed with an administration which is likely to think that price controls are the way to fix inflation.
Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions.
I realize you're reaching for modifiers, Mr Stein, but "Democrat-controlled unions" is a trifle redundant.
This bill is sent to Congress after Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for President Obama to have read the entire bill.
Yep, there's a read the bills act which has been proposed for -- ye gods! -- over a decade now. RTB is good advice for alcon, the 43rd and 44th POTUS' not least, but honored of them all!
For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.

We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.
Both actions would have avoided major bonuses -- they're actually closer to commissions, did you know that? -- and released cash into the economy, probably through necessities: groceries, rent, things like that. Waaayyyy to sensible an idea.

--snip--
How long until the debt incurred under this program is so immense that it causes a downgrade in the sovereign debt of the USA? What happens to us then?
Outstanding questions, Mr. Stein. We have a structural, unfunded deficit of over $50 Trillion (trillion, with a T). If we can't borrow money to delay the day of reckoning, we can -- lessee-- reduce benefits or raise taxes. OOORRRRR, we could just print up $50 trillion and dump the greenbacks into the economy. Can you say 'hyperinflation'? I knew you could.
This has been a punch in the solar plexus to the kind of responsible, far-seeing, mature government processes that are needed to protect America. This is more than the pork barrel. This is a coup for the constituencies of the party in power and against the idea of a responsible government itself. A bleak day.

Unfortunately, it is only the latest in a long series of such days stretching across decades of rule by both parties, to the point where truly responsible government is only a distant echo of our forgotten ancestors.
Amen, Brother Stein. Amen

Hyperinflation & the Stimulus Package

Dr Peter Boettke makes a point that really needs to be made about the inflationary effects of dumping almost a trillion bucks into the economy:

Government can raise revenue in one of three ways: (1) tax, (2) borrow and (3) inflate. The natural proclivity of democratic governments is to pursue public policies which concentrate benefits on the well-organized and well-informed, and disperse the costs on the unorganized and ill-informed. And there are strong reasons why this bias in policy making will also be biased toward shortsightedness --- pay out the benefits now, and worry about the costs down the road. Thus, the natural tendency for elected government officials is to borrow (rather than tax) and then inflate (rather than tax). Deficit financing, accumulating public debt, and monetization of the debt.

Now a lot of individuals have been claiming that economics as a scientific discipline has been rocked by our current crisis, both due to our failure to "predict" it and our inability to "fix" it with a consensus on the right public policy. And anyone not deeply read in the history of our discipline, or who received their university education in economics in the second half of the 20th century can be excused for such a reading of the situation. This would be the most logical interpretation one could arrive at --- especially if you not only listen to President Obama say that we must work past the dead ideologies of the past and the "do nothing" arguments (as if that argument has been actively pursued since Grover Cleveland).

Read the rest here (you can also click on the post's title):
http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2009/01/some-basic-economics-of-public-policy.html

Yep, the D president that last rocked my world was ol' Grover. The next D was Wilson who's on my list -- near the top too -- as Presidents who weren't ready for the deep end of the pool.

“To Don’t” List for the Right

Andy Levy, of Breitbart's "Big Hollywood", knocks one OUT of the park:

My “To Don’t” List for the Right
by Andy Levy

The only thing worse than bad winners are sore losers, and we’ve had enough of them for the past eight years. So with that in mind, in the wake of today’s historic inauguration, here’s my Handbook For The Loyal Opposition, 2009 edition - a “To Don’t List,” if you will. Or even if you won’t.

DON’T question the motives - question the policy. When you disagree with Obama’s policies, say so, and make it clear why. But remember that President Obama is doing what he thinks is best for the country, as President Bush did. Both men love America and want what’s best for her. End of story.

DON’T make it personal. We don’t need another Derangement Syndrome. We don’t need people doing things like emphasizing Obama’s middle name in a derogatory fashion. How anyone would think that’s beneficial to their cause, or to the country as a whole, is beyond me. Also, it’s not even clever. Neither are smushwords like BusHitler, or sillywords like Rethuglicans and Dhimmicrats.

DON’T cozy up to and champion foreign dictators and despots. Sean Penn is an ass. No reason to be like him. ‘Nuff said. (Corollary: Don’t cozy up to and champion foreign dictators and despots and then act outraged when people question your patriotism.)

DON’T pretend you’re being brave when you criticize your government. Not while people in other countries actually, y’know, DIE, when they do that.

DON’T use the word “divisive.” At this point, all that word means is “You disagree with me,” and the English language gets mangled enough these days.

DON’T use the phrase “speaking truth to power.” EVER.

DON’T move to Canada.

DON’T say you’re going to move to Canada and then stay here. (I know it’s too late for Stephen Baldwin, but not for the rest of you.)

DON’T apologize to foreigners and say things to them like, “I didn’t vote for Obama,” or “He’s not MY president.”

DON’T say or do everything in your power to drive this country apart and then claim you want unity when it’s your guy in power. This is like the convicted felon who conveniently finds God when he’s up for parole.

DON’T call people un-American one week, and then talk about how “We are not blue states or red states, we are the United States” the next. (This rule may only apply to Tom Hanks, but I put it in just to be safe.)

DON’T automatically think people who disagree with you are stupid or evil. Some of them are, of course. But most of them aren’t, and you might actually learn something if you listen to them.

And finally, DON’T use the fact that many on the left behaved abominably for the past eight years as an excuse to behave the same way. America needs adults. And if it bothered you when they did it, it’s a good sign that you shouldn’t do it.

Very bad news for medical progress

From Virginia Postrel (www.dynamist.com):

It's the worst regulatory news I've heard in a long time--and it predates the new administration by a half year. Sidney Wolfe, who seemingly never met a new drug or device he thought should be legal, has been named to four-year term on the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Committee. He's got the "consumer" slot. Well, I'm a big-time pharmaceutical consumer, and this man does not speak for me.

Man, oh man... what she said: I roger!

Oh, Canada

h/t, Mark Steyn of NRO's Corner:

Blame Canada [Mark Steyn]

I felt a touch of the Michelle Obamas coming on upon reading this news:

Canada stood alone before a United Nations human rights council yesterday, the only one among 47 nations to oppose a motion condemning the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

It always speaks well of a chap when he stands alone before the disgusting UN "Human Rights" Council. Britain, France and Japan abstained. My advice to any civilized nation that chances to find itself on the UN HRC is, as a matter of policy, to vote against whatever the council's in favor of.

Beer & Wine: what can't they do

Now THIS is the way to start the new year. God bless the Brits!

Marinating a steak in red wine or beer can cut down the number of cancer-causing agents produced when it is fried or grilled, research suggests.

GOVT debt > net worth of US citizens

From Agorafinancial.com:

Which is greater? The U.S. government’s mountain of debt or the entire net worth of all U.S. citizens?

For the first time in our history, it’s the former.

As of the end of September, the U.S. government held “$56.4 trillion in debts, liabilities and unfunded promises for Medicare and Social Security,” said research published this week by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. The number comes directly from the Treasury release we harped on Wednesday.

And our collective net worth? $56.5 trillion, as calculated by the Fed at the end of September as well.

“Given more recent developments, it's clear that America now owes more than its citizens are worth," said PGP Foundation president and protagonist of I.O.U.S.A. David Walker. "Passing this shocking milestone highlights the need for President-elect Obama and the next Congress not only to turn the economy around and boost consumer confidence, but to put a process in place that will lead to tough choices getting made to strengthen the government's financial condition once the economy begins growing again."

The subprime primer

There are times when words fail me. Not often, but there are. Fortunately, words don't fail everyone:

The Sub-Prime Primer

by Ike

Due credit goes to Tim Walker over at Hoover’s Business Insight Zone, for pointing out the need for a sub-prime primer. However, as the parent of a four-year-old and a four-year-old who just inherited an additional $540 billion in bailout this week (on top of the $840 billion that everyone already knew about,) I felt the need to write a primer that speaks to them.

Actually, any primer that speaks to them ought to start with an apology, followed by sentencing guidelines for the weasels responsible. With any luck, I can get my daughter to illustrate it. Without further adieu, here is the Occam’s RazR Sub-Prime Primer.

Meet Dick

This is Dick.
Dick has a nice

shirt.
Dick has a nice tie.
Dick has a nice suit.
Dick owns a bank.
Meet Joe

This is Joe.
Joe has a job.
Joe wants a house.
Joe does his job and gets paid.
He puts his check in the bank.
He puts his check in Dick’s bank.
Joe’s House

Joe wants a house.
Joe does not have lots of cash.
Dick says “Hey Joe. I can give you a loan.
You come to my bank. I see your check.
I know you will pay me back.”
Joe signs his name.
Joe moves in his new house.
Meet Tom

This is Tom.
Tom wants a house too.
Tom has a check that is not as big as Joe’s.
Some days, Tom has no check at all.
Dick likes Tom, but will not give him a loan.
Dick wants to be sure he will be paid back.
Frank is in the House

This is Frank.
Frank has lots of friends. They vote for Frank, and send Frank to D.C.
Frank wants to stay in D.C., so Frank does what his friends want.
Frank thinks he’ll have more friends if he can put more people in houses.
Frank wants to put Tom in a house.
The Phone Call

Dick gets a call at work.
“Hi Dick,” says Frank.
“Hi Frank,” says Dick.
“I want you to put more people into a house,” says Frank.
“But Frank, what if Tom can’t pay me back?” says Dick.
“Too bad,” says Frank. “I will make your bank small. I will let some other Dick buy your bank.”
“But I will lose my shirt,” Dick says.
Frank says “Put Tom in a house. It will be okay.”
Frank says “My friends Fannie and Fred will help.”
Pretty Bubbles

Tom gets a house.
Jane gets a house.
Bill gets a house.
Betsy gets a house.
Everyone gets a house.
So many people want a house, that it costs more to buy a house.
Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy all ask Dick for more money.
Dick is happy, and buys more shirts.
The Bubble Pops

One day, the shiny houses are not new.
Tom wants to sell his house.
Jane wants to sell her house.
Bill wants to sell his house.
Betsy wants to sell her house.
Now a house does not cost much at all.
But Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy do not have the cash to pay Dick.
Dick will lose his shirt.
Pass the Buck

“Hi Frank, this is Dick.”
“Who are you?” said Frank.
“Frank, I am Dick. I own a bank. You told me to put people in houses.”
“What is your problem?” said Frank.
Dick said, “The people in the houses cannot pay me back.”
“That is too bad for you,” said Frank.
“What about Fannie and Fred?” said Dick.
“You have too many shirts,” said Frank. “All you Dicks with banks are bad, bad men.”
Dick did not know what to do.

Dick went to Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy.
“I need my money,” Dick said.
“We don’t have any money,” said Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy.
“Then why did you buy a house if you could not pay?” asked Dick.
“Fannie and Fred will pay you,” said Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy.
Dick asked Fannie and Fred for help.
They said “Go see Frank.”
Bad to be a Bank

Dick still has his bank.
But Dick does not have money to help people.
Dick has no money to loan people.
Even people like Joe.
Joe has a job.
But Joe cannot get a loan to give jobs to more people.
Frank’s Friend Hank

Frank went to his friend Hank.
“Fannie and Fred need more money,” said Frank.
Hank said “What do you mean, Frank?”
Frank said “Fannie and Fred need more money to help Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy.”
Hank said “We can’t give money to Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy. Joe will get mad.”
Frank said “We’ll take care of all of the Joes. We’ll tell them they cannot make more jobs until we help Fannie and Fred.”
Hank said “Fannie and Fred can help all those Dicks with banks.”

Hank did not have enough money to help Fannie and Fred.
Hank went to print some more money.
Hank cannot just make money.
He has to borrow it from Joe’s children.
One day, Joe’s children will be mommies and daddies.
Their little boys and girls will have to pay it back.
Frank Stays in the House

Frank has a new house.
Frank has a new shirt.
Frank has a new tie.
Frank has a new suit.
Frank says Joe has to pay Hank, so Hank can pay Fannie and Fred, so Fannie and Fred can pay Tom and Jane and Bill and Betsy.
Frank tells his friends that Dick is to blame.
Dick loses his shirt.
Joe loses his shirt.
Hank has the bank.
Frank’s friends send him back to DC.

“aggressive interrogation” and the extrajudicial rendition

The fact that aggressive questioning and extraordinary rendition was a practice of the two administrations preceding Mr. Obama's is not always paid attention to!

Mr. Obama will soon face the same awful choices that confronted George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and he could well be forced to accept a central feature of their anti-terrorist methods: extraordinary rendition. If the choice is between non-deniable aggressive questioning conducted by Americans and deniable torturous interrogations by foreigners acting on behalf of the United States, it is almost certain that as president Mr. Obama will choose the latter.

Of course, he and his senior officials seem to believe now that they don’t have to make this choice. For them there is a better way to combat terrorism, by using physically non-coercive questioning of suspects and civilian courts or military

courts-martial to try and punish jihadists.

But this third way, which is essentially where America was before the Clinton administration embraced rendition, is plausible only if Mr. Obama is lucky. He might be. If there is no “ticking time bomb” situation — say, where waterboarding a future Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the 9/11 mastermind) could save thousands of civilians — then there is neither need for the C.I.A.’s exceptional methods, nor the harsh services of Jordan’s General Intelligence Department.

OK, sports fans, what happens if

[Obama]increases the number of Special Forces raids into Pakistan, and those soldiers capture members of Al Qaeda and their computers, and learn that the group has advanced plans for striking American and European targets, but we don’t know specifically where or when

?

Those that volunteer themselves or their families to be the ones killed or injured please form a line to the right.

Stop the flippin' presses

The UN's taking action on piracy; our troubles are over:

SOMALIA/UN: The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on pirates, arms smugglers, and perpetrators of instability in Somalia in a fresh attempt to help end years of lawlessness in the Horn of Africa nation, 20 Nov reporting. The 15-nation council endorsed a British plan for a council panel to recommend people and entities whose financial assets would be frozen and who would face a travel ban. It also reaffirms an arms embargo.
Enforcing the sanctions poses steep challenges, however, as those responsible for much of the anarchy plaguing the country are well outside any traditional finance system. The council action was followed by discussion on the deteriorating situation in Somalia - both on land and at sea, which includes some of the world's most important shipping routes. U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Raisuddin Zenenga said the multinational effort being mobilized to fight the pirates off Somalia - involving the European Union, NATO countries, Russia, India and others - should be replicated to mobilize an international force to tackle the security problems in Somalia itself. U.S. deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo called for immediate steps to stabilize the deteriorating security situation, which threatens political progress and an Oct. 26 cease-fire agreement between the Somali government and the insurgents. She stressed that
piracy is "a direct result of the lack of rule of law and desperate economic conditions on the ground." DiCarlo urged the international community strengthen the beleaguered 3,450-strong African Union force in Somalia to protect food shipments. The African Union also urged the U.N. to quickly send peacekeepers to Somalia

By George, if that doesn't make 'em see the error of their ways... Nothing like a good sanction to stop piracy.