I canceled my subscription to The Economist several months ago. The British news magazine has suffered from a tilt to the left over the last decade. Once the paper endorsed ObamaCare with no compelling reason other than simply because it was better than doing nothing they lost me. There’s nothing logical about that position and signaled the best example ever of a once great economics magazine on the decline.
The Economist has an article on Rick Perry that was actually pretty good. I think it’s a fair analysis of the Governor from Texas. Perry’s record is far from perfect and the things that have made Texas special aren’t because of Perry. However, Texas has succeeded because of its citizens and not because of the government. That type of citizen ownership of the problem is what President Kennedy meant when he said “ask not what your country can do for you…” President Obama’s view of government is much different.
A fight between Mr Obama and Mr Perry would offer an invigorating choice between different visions of America’s future. But Republicans should remember that there are reasons why Texas remains exceptional, one of which is that, for all the nation’s ritualised espousal of self-reliance, millions of voters still look to government for help in hard times. Blame the New Deal, if you like; but that’s just the way it is.
The author is right about voters. Since the New Deal the number of people looking to the government for handouts has increased exponentially and it’s crippling the nation’s economy. The author mentions that Texas has an “underfunded school system and an inadequate safety net.” This reveals the liberal bias at The Economist. Some of the most funded school districts in the nation have the worst grades and I’m not sure what he means by “an inadequate safety net.”
“The way it is” is the problem. If Perry is to lose because the nation is addicted to the government then the American people deserve the looming economic ruin. Let’s be frank, on the present course most of the nation is headed toward poverty. There will be no safety net. The United States has to ween off the freeloaders or the American dream is over. The Great Depression created this beast and it’s pushing the nation towards the Final Depression. President Obama represents the sinking ship Status Quo. If the Americans are comfortable letting the captain sink the ship then so be it.
There’s no better example of the difference in coverage between Republican and Democratic election wins than how The Economist covered President Obama’s victory and the GOP victory last week. One week before the election The Economist ran a cover that included the headline “Angry America.” It troubles me that a publication like The Economist can get things so wrong.
Hope vs. an Angry Posse
I think I’m falling out of love with The Economist. It continues to be a great source of information about foreign affairs, but it’s becoming less of a source for “economics.” This is especially true when they endorsed the hideously awful ObamaCare bill simply because it was “something.” That’s not intelligent; it’s simply bad economics. Another area where they’ve missed the boat is the theory of man-made global warming. The great Climategate whitewash has begun.
Greenhouse gases still warm planets, carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas and the amount of it in the Earth’s atmosphere is still shooting up. The temperature rose over the 20th century in a way that follows from these basic truths. Other mechanisms at play in the climate complicate the issue, but none of them offers a remotely satisfactory alternative explanation for the temperature rise.
Really, is this the best they could come up with to defend the theory? Yes, temperatures increased in the twentieth century. There wasn’t a spike, it wasn’t alarming, and history is littered with centuries of increasing and decreasing temperatures. “In a way that follows from these basics truths.” Huh? I think I’m giving up on this issue because the people who choose to believe this hogwash are beyond reasoning with anymore. No matter what happens there will always be a group of people who believe things are getting worse. They’ll always have a group of thick headed scientists to check off on the theory. What concerns me is that The Economist shouldn’t be falling for idiotic apocalyptic scenarios. Didn’t we learn anything from Thomas Malthus?
Here's a panel of leading experts.
Throughout history politicians have fanned the flames of paranoia, moving us on from one imaginary disaster to the next. Every time it’s sold as being done in our best interest and every time it only ends up doing more harm than good. The writers at The Economist should know better, but instead they believe in that age old shallow argument that we have to do “something.”
Obama signs the Health Care bill and then hands the invoice to a little child who will have to pay for it.
Greg Mankiw always offers a level headed analysis on economic issues. It’s probably a prerequisite for every non-liberal who wants to work at Harvard. It seems the supporters of ObamaCare have put aside all the negative aspects of the bill and have a adopted the lies from the White House and Congress.
The other group is kind of like The Economist. The UK-based news magazine has really lost touch with logic lately. Their argument in favor of ObamaCare is as weak as it is logical. The basic argument is that any bill is better than no bill at all. This is a news magazine that calls itself The Economist?
What’s odd is that when President Bush tried to tackle reforming Social Security no one adopted the “let’s pass something” approach. The Republicans abandoned reform because they feared political backlash. The Democrats are philosophically opposed to fixing any entitlement. It’s in the DNA of the Democratic party to expand and break as many entitlement programs as possible.
Notice that no Republican advocates a serious reform of Medicare. The Democrats are the welfare party, and the Republicans are simply the caretakers of the welfare state. While the left longingly gazes at their Obama posters the President has never said how he’s going to pay for all these goodies. That’s Greg Mankiw’s point.
The Obama administration’s political philosophy is more egalitarian and more communitarian than mine. Their spending programs require much higher taxes than we have now and, indeed, much higher taxes than they have had the temerity to propose. Here is the question I have been wondering about: How long can the President wait before he comes clean with the American people and explains how high taxes needs to rise to pay for his vision of government?
I’ll go one step further because the Republicans aren’t prepared for the serious challenges ahead. The taxes needed to pay for all these programs will have to be enormous. The GOP doesn’t have the guts to tackle the problem. Taxing the rich isn’t going to pay for it all. If people are concerned about the economy right now, just wait until the VAT tax starts.
I’m not sure Obama even cares. Perhaps he just wants to be the guy who gave the U.S. health care. Obama will let some other administration clean up the wreckage. Hey, Lyndon Johnson is still considered a great president and he only got us mired in Vietnam, started the welfare state, and gave us Medicare.
It seems liberals are determined to turn the U.S. into one big giant pyramid scheme. This might last five, fifteen, or twenty-five years, but eventually the whole house of card falls. Progressives love to tell sob stories about the disadvantaged. What about the working man whose paycheck is being siphoned away? Who is helping the forgotten man and how are we going to afford this when he’s out of job?
The cover story for this week’s Economist deals with America’s fiscal hole. For the most part The Economist is dead right about this issue. Americans seem unwilling to pay higher taxes or cut down the size of government.
Cold arithmetic suggests that spending cuts alone cannot deliver enough. Changes to entitlements take effect only gradually. And the scope for slashing non-defence discretionary spending is limited, since it makes up merely one-sixth of total outlays. So Americans are stuck with a budgetary conundrum: they seem to be opting for more government, at least in health care, yet they do not seem prepared to pay for it. Their leaders have indulged this fantasy. Mr Obama has foolishly sworn off higher taxes on 95% of households, and Republicans will not countenance them for anybody. This newspaper strongly prefers small government and low taxes, but if Americans are to have bigger government and a sustainable budget, tax revenues will have to rise.
This is the defining issue of our time. Both parties seem unwilling to reduce entitlements. Democrats wish to raise taxes and Republicans are adamantly opposed. Republicans talk about reducing the size of government, but lack the willpower to actually do anything. Simply raising taxes on the rich won’t pay for everything. The Economist makes a great point about tax options. The United States taxes income too much and consumption too little. Everyone seems to agree there’s a savings problem in the United States. I’ve written before about the many inefficiencies of income taxes. A national sales tax is a much better solution. Unfortunately, we can’t trust the federal government not to abuse a sales tax while still levying an income tax. Plus, given America’s growing appetite for larger government taxes would continue to rise to pay for any new “rights” progressives dream up (the right to clothing, the right to food and shelter, the right to own a smart phone, and so on till we can’t get any of that stuff).
The Economist – The size of your pay packet may be important, but so is its purchasing power. Helpfully, a UBS report published this week offers a handy guide to how long it takes a worker on the average net wage to earn the price of a Big Mac in 73 cities. Fast-food junkies are best off in Chicago, Toronto and Tokyo, where it takes a mere 12 minutes at work to afford a Big Mac. By contrast, employees must toil for over two hours to earn enough for a burger fix in Mexico City, Jakarta and Nairobi.
Back in April I wrote that I wished Sarah Palin would go away. I’ve waited a week to collect my thoughts on her odd decision to step down as governor of Alaska. Who knows what her future plans hold, but she wasn’t going to be a viable choice for president in 2012 even if she remained as governor. Club Soda is going to write more about the press’ unfair coverage of Palin, but she’s been a lightning rod ever since she stepped on the stage during last year’s election.
Today, Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal has a blistering editorial about Palin that reinforces every stereotype that exists about the governor; it doesn’t seem to matter whether or not the assertion is fair. Palin has never said anything controversial. Most of the press around her has been about her family. It seems to many on the left that Palin’s family is a much larger issue for an aspiring politician than President Clinton’s insatiable thirst “for strange.”
If I didn’t know better I would have to think that Palin is one of the most hated people in politics; however, that’s just not the case.
A Pew poll last month found that Americans’ opinions of Mrs Palin were evenly balanced. A hefty 44% took a dim view of her, while 45% took a rosy one. Among Republicans, she scored a whopping 73% approval rating, far outpacing any other plausible contender for the party’s presidential nomination in 2012.
The Economist article beats up on Palin but are her poll numbers really indicative of a troubled politician? Keep in mind the current president has received two years of rosy press coverage and can only manage an approval rating of 51%. Palin shouldn’t be concerned that only 45% of Americans like her.
In the end Palin was defined by her relative inexperience, which is odd because historically that hasn’t been an issue for vice-presidential candidates. For example, Richard Nixon was 39 when he became vice-president under Eisenhower. Lest we forget, President Obama was given the ultimate free pass for his inexperience and he ran for president. When Obama gave an illogical and ignorant answer to a question about the capital gains tax posed by Charlie Gibson during a Democrat primary debate, it surely wasn’t national news. However, when Palin struggled with questions from the same Charlie Gibson she was labeled a moron and a shallow thinker. But at least Obama can pretentiously pronounce Pakistan Pockeestahn!
Politics, much like life isn’t fair and is unpredictable; no one knows what will happen in the future. In 2002, who could have predicted that a member of the Illinois Senate would be the next president? Palin is still very young and has a promising future as a political personality.
The Economist is trying to come to terms with their endorsement of Barack Obama last year. As I’ve written before the fact that the administration is woefully adrift and apparently unprepared should not be shocking. The president wasn’t qualified for the position. He has never served as an executive and has never run anything successfully his entire life. Obama’s struggles the first two months should be expected, and he has plenty of time to grow into the position. Fortunately for Obama the United States isn’t Kentucky basketball. Four years is an eternity in politics. The Economist takes Obama to task on several different fronts, but I think this is the most important area of concern.
If Mr Obama cannot work with the Republicans, he needs to be certain that he controls his own party. Unfortunately, he seems unable to. Put bluntly, the Democrats are messing him around. They are pushing pro-trade-union legislation (notably a measure to get rid of secret ballots) even though he doesn’t want them to do so; they have been roughing up the bankers even though it makes his task of fixing the economy much harder; they have stuffed his stimulus package and his appropriations bill with pork, even though this damages him and his party in the eyes of the electorate. Worst of all, he is letting them get away with it.
The president needs to rein in the leadership of the Congress. Pelosi and Reid are way outside the American mainstream. Obama will appoint leftist anti-property rights judges and the left will be happy. The right to have an abortion and for homosexuals to get married is far more important to liberals that the constitutional property rights and they can’t get these “rights” through the legislature. “Progressives” view the constitution as a living document created by racist white men who not only owned slaves (Tom Harkin), but also believed in God.
There’s nothing like a good abortion protest to bring out the God haters.
The picture above is appropriate. “Progressives” also don’t like to take the constitution literally either. For those scoring at home Bob Avakian is an Atheist and a Communist (i.e. he has a perfect pro-choice record). In order for Obama to successfully serve the “progressives” and the rest of the country he’ll have to stand up to his party in Cogress and throw bones to his base on appointments. Does this sound familiar (See: Bush, See: Clinton)?
On a couple of occasions I’ve written about charitable giving, especially concerning liberals and conservatives. Economist Greg Mankiw mentioned this phenomenon after seeing the Wall Street Journal’s article about Senator Biden’s tax return. Evidently Biden isn’t such a big fan of charity. It’s especially bizarre considering the fact he ran for president (on more than one occasion) and had to have known that his tax records would be public. Mankiw cites Arthur C. Brooks book Who Really Cares.
Conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone’s tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don’t provide them with enough money.
Why do people who give less to charity want to redistribute other people’s money? Are the philosophies income redistribution and centralized planning an avenue to alleviate guilt?
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