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A Recession, Not A "Catastrophe"
By Ed Driscoll · February 9, 2009 09:50 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted
Despite self-serving doomsday prognostications by President Obama, and a skewed unemployment chart produced by Nancy Pelosi and promoted by Andrew Sullivan, Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, reminds us that "It's A Recession Not A 'Catastrophe'". In the interim however, Brett Joshpe has a modest proposal for Big Hollywood: Unlike the greedy Wall Street executives though, who have torpedoed our economy by allowing federal bureaucrats to bludgeon them into making bad loans, Hollywood would surely understand the merit of pay caps. After all, it would enable the entertainment world to fulfill its pledge "to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other." (Cut for laughter and gagging and take two!)What say you, Ashton and Demi? Wait, I Thought Looking For Root Causes Was Important
By Ed Driscoll · February 9, 2009 08:40 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · The New Puritans
What caused the meltdown of the banking system? Was it Texas-Hold'em Poker? According to those new puritans at New York magazine it was--gasp!--television! Worse, horror-of-horrors, it was cable television, and they want this sort of smut and financial pornography banished from the airways: The real villains here, the truly bad seeds at the heart of this crisis, have gone unpunished thus far and are still in operation. They are Jeff Lewis and Ryan Brown of Bravo's Flipping Out, Armando and Veronica Montelongo of TLC's Flip This House, Kristen Kemp of TLC's The Property Ladder, Kendra Todd of HGTV's My House Is Worth WHAT?, and the TLC, Bravo, HGTV, and Fine Living networks in general. All of them encouraged people to take out massive loans in order to buy and renovate homes and sell them at a profit when, really, most people have terrible taste, and furthermore, are bad at laying tile. These shows are still on! WHY?But then, there are all sorts of reasons for those on the left to avoid examining some of these root causes: Back in late December, we noted that the Connecticut Post refused to print emails from readers if they delved too heavily into a particular hometown topic: "All letters are welcome. But there are code words hidden in some that are signals to stop paying close attention -- "Chris Dodd" and "Barney Frank."All of which points to a word that the New York Times simply can't bring itself to speak, Ed Morrissey writes: The Times wants to sell Dodd as a victim of the "moneyed Washington subculture where powerful incumbents are invited to get something wholesale," but that's poppycock. The man who accepts a bribe is no more of a victim than the man who offers it. It takes both to create corruption, and it's hard to find a more bald example of it than this. Dodd oversaw Countrywide as part of his committee chairmanship and understood that when he accepted the two loans for below-market rates and no-points acceptance. Countrywide later went belly-up, costing the nation billions of dollars for its easy-terms lending practices, and Dodd has been among the voices blaming the collapse of the lending markets on poor oversight. Well, he ought to know that firsthand, oughtn't he?Exactly. As G.K. Chesterton noted a century ago, "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem"--or where it began. The Dawn Of The "Savior-Based Economy"
As South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford noted on CNN today, "A lot of people who've made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by the population at large": "A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt," Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.The "savior-based economy"? What could go wrong? Update: Welcome Insta-readers. Feel free to look around the site, and if you like what see...Read The Whole Thing™, to coin a phrase. Bad Faith Economists
By Ed Driscoll · February 6, 2009 03:45 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Samizdata.net notes: In a recent New York Times column, Paul Krugman wrote about what he called the bad faith of the opponents of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. Krugman is apparently labouring under the view that his side has a monopoly of virtue in the current debate and that the Obama plan can not possibly be attacked on the merits.Apparently? (HT: I/P) The Great Overreach
By Ed Driscoll · February 6, 2009 06:53 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Jonah Goldberg's latest essay begins, "The stimulus bill has failed:" Barack Obama has failed. The Trojan Horse of Hope and Change crashed into the guardrail of reality, revealing an army of ideologues and activists inside.Read the whole thing; follow the links here. Timothy Geithner: The Obamatross?
By Ed Driscoll · February 6, 2009 01:40 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Jennifer Rubin writes that when Tom Daschle backed out, "the conventional wisdom was that Geithner had gotten 'lucky' since he slipped through before the firestorm": But that might not be right and, in fact, he may now be a never-ending source of angst for the Obama team. When we get to the inevitable Obama tax hike on the "rich" will Geithner be the one trying to sell the proposition to the voters and Congress? You can hear the Republican retort already. ("Yeah, not a problem since you don't pay all your taxes!") Even now, is he capable of performing PR for the administration on the news show circuit while the first question would be whether he too should step down?Plus some thoughts on who in Obama's cabinet benefits from a hobbled Geithner. Turning Japanese? I Really Think So
By Ed Driscoll · February 6, 2009 12:27 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies · The Memory Hole
No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women--but ladles of endless pork. Something to be avoided like a cyclone ranger, lest it cause The Vapors: "Lessons From A Stimulus That Failed." "GE Chief Warns On US Depression Threat"
By Ed Driscoll · February 5, 2009 03:21 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
That's the headline from the Financial Times, which notes: The US economy is suffering its steepest downturn since at least the 1970s and could descend into a depression, Jeff Immelt, General Electric's chief executive, warned on Thursday.Far from warning about a devastating economic slowdown, most of GE's other spokesmen are surprisingly copacetic with the idea. 25% Of Obama's Original Cabinet Picks Have Tax Issues
By Ed Driscoll · February 5, 2009 12:50 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law
"Have we had a more incompetent vetting process in the White House over such a short period of time? When we criticized Barack Obama's lack of executive experience, even we didn't think it was going to be this bad." Update: "It's easier to list the Obama-nees who aren't tax cheats than those who are." More: "Two thoughts: (1) Don't any of these people pay their taxes? And (2) Is this, like, some kind of karmic payback for all the Joe-the-plumber tax business?" The Words Of The Profits Were Written On The Snuggie Shawls
By Ed Driscoll · February 5, 2009 09:11 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Sorry to recycle one of our more popular recent headlines so quickly, but it certainly seemed to fit Mary Katharine Ham's latest video: 21 Goes Bust
By Ed Driscoll · February 5, 2009 09:08 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Return of the Primitive · The Substance of Style
Manolo for the Men sadly reports, "the economic downturn has led to a true casual-ty: 21, the famed Manhattan restaurant, is no longer requiring that male diners wear ties, as it had for the prior 79 years." "It is the final victory of Los Angeles," Tim Zagat of the popular eponymously named restaurant wry noted. John Edwards Was Right
By Ed Driscoll · February 5, 2009 08:33 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
There really are two Americas, Glenn Reynolds writes: So in a way we have found a new kind of politics. We've gone from a "culture of corruption" in which people who figured in scandals (can you say "Duke Cunningham"?) faced actual consequences, to a culture of impunity, in which it's taken for granted that the rules for big shots are different.Indeed. Read the whole thingTM. Life In The Laissez-Faire Wild West
By Ed Driscoll · February 4, 2009 02:26 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Memory Hole
In his best-selling Liberal Fascism, Jonah Goldberg wrote: Like the editors of the old Soviet encyclopedias who would send out updates to instruct which pages should be torn out, American liberalism has repeatedly censored and rewritten its own history so that the "bad guys" were always conservatives and the good guys always liberals.In The American Spectator W. James Antle III writes that you can see this phenomenon at work in Sam Tanenhaus' latest article: I've been prodded to read and comment on this Sam Tanenhaus essay pronouncing conservatism dead. Tanenhaus is a smart guy who knows quite a bit about the conservative movement, much more than most liberal writers. But I'm not terribly impressed by his eulogy for the right. Uncharacteristically, Tanenhaus makes little effort to understand conservatives on their own terms. Instead we get embarrassingly tendentious liberal cliches like this:Read the rest here; related thoughts from Orrin Judd.Today, the situation is much bleaker. After George W. Bush's two terms, conservatives must reckon with the consequences of a presidency that failed, in large part, because of its fervent commitment to movement ideology: the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy; the blind faith in a deregulated, Wall Street-centric market; the harshly punitive "culture war" waged against liberal "elites."This completely airbrushes out the "responsible" center-left's initial support for the Iraq war, the fact that the biggest "deregulation" relevant to banking was signed into law by Bill Clinton, the left's own role in the "harshly punitive 'culture war'" (which side imposed their will on the electorate via the courts?), and of course any distinctions between Bush's crony capitalism meets Sarbanes-Oxley meets bailouts and the laisezz faire wild west of Tanenhaus' fevered imagination. Pinch, It's Time To Call Don Draper
By Ed Driscoll · February 4, 2009 09:23 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
What is it with the New York Times' ads lately? Last month, Galley Slaves linked to their incredibly lame Bobos Today, Steve Green looks at the Times' latest online ad featuring a glowing photo of The One Who Pinch Has Been Waiting For and asks: Is it just me, or has the NYT ad department just given the President a ringing endorsement? It's one thing when the editorial page makes an endorsement, but a banner ad? Really?My favorite is the recent theme featuring the headline, "Subscribe To History," which has a remarkably ironic unintended subtext. In Dodd They Trust
By Ed Driscoll · February 4, 2009 02:11 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
Speaking of boomer-era flashbacks, Glenn Reynolds dubs this "Chris Dodd's Modified Limited Hangout"; Mark Tapscott writes that "There are two kinds of journalists in the world": those who have been been given the idiot's treatment by public officials on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for public documents, and those who will be.How will Beltway journalists respond? Tapscott predicts that they'll happily play along: My guess is that they will do nothing because Dodd is a Democrat and he will be protected just as they have protected House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Clinton administration officials like former OMB Director Franklin Raines, and the many Democrat donors and operators like Mozilo who made millions through their associations with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They forced lenders to lend billions to unqualified buyers, shielded the process from public exposure and accountability and then cried "Wall Street greed" when their Ponzi scheme exploded and the economy tanked.In other words... Keep The Bar Code Scanner Flying
By Ed Driscoll · February 2, 2009 10:38 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The New Puritans
Charles Platt was a senior writer for Wired, whom much like Michael Lewis, George Plimpton, George Orwell, and other journalists, decides to go to work in an industry reviled by, or otherwise unknown to elites--in Platt's case, Wal-Mart: The picture above is of me, finishing my shift at the world's largest retailer. How did I move from being a senior writer at Wired magazine to an entry-level position in a company that is reviled by almost all living journalists?Platt writes, "As for all those Wal-Mart horror stories--when I went home and checked the web sites that attack the company, I found that many of them are subsidized with union money." Of course, anti-capitalist forces demonizing department stores is hardly a new trend, and certainly not limited to America. Read the whole thing, which concludes with a reference to Adam Shepard, the author of Scratch Beginnings, whom Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith interviewed for one of their podcasts last year. (Via Walter Olsen and John Hawkins.) The L.A. Times Keeps Rockin', The Guys Get Shirts At CNN
By Ed Driscoll · January 31, 2009 06:43 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
The L.A. Times is shedding jobs; it will soon have 300 fewer people employed not to publish the news. Meanwhile, CNN isn't afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve, and its biases on its chest, though sadly, it doesn't appear that a "Wright-Free Zone" T-shirt is yet for sale. "We Planned In War"
By Ed Driscoll · January 30, 2009 01:48 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
In his review of Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man for the Claremont Institute, Jonah Goldberg summarized the New Dealers' attempt to deploy military methods and central planning to nationalize America's economy thusly: When liberals speak of unity and hope, what they really mean is success. The 1930s and 1960s, unlike the '20s and '50s, were decades when liberals, broadly speaking, were "winning." When you hear liberals bemoaning divisiveness and insisting that we must "get beyond" "labels" and "ideological" differences, what they are really saying is that their opponents should shut up and get with the program. The New Deal's appeal lies in the fact that it was the first time when progressive social engineers had real power without the galvanizing dynamic of a war. The Brains Trusters had spent much of the 1920s complaining "we planned in war," i.e., during World War I; they insisted that they should be allowed to plan in peace as well. The Depression gave them their shot. And that in a nutshell is why supposedly empirically minded and "reality-based" liberals still genuflect to the myth of the New Deal. It is the ne plus ultra of liberal power. Defending the New Deal is the first requirement of liberal power-worship.Rusty Weiss spots a newspaper cartoonist so close and yet so far from this point, as he equates the passing of the so-called stimulus bill with the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima: In one of the more insulting comparisons seen in recent memory, Albany Times Union editorial cartoonist John de Rosier does a major disservice to the honorable men who served during the Battle of Iwo Jima, by depicting recent efforts of Democrats to pass a non-stimulating 'economic stimulus plan' as equally heroic.Meanwhile, in a brief item on Jonah's own Liberal Fascism book, Frank Wilson, the book editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes: I downloaded Goldberg's book on my Kindle because I was curious about a book that had made it on to the NYT best-seller list without ever being reviewing in the Times or most other papers and because I didn't want to pay the full price for what I suspected might be a screed. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a well-written historical survey of a set of ideas and how they grew. I was also surprised by what I learned about Mussolini.As I wrote in my own review of Jonah's book: Mussolini similarly invented the word "totalitarianism" as a way to describe a cradle-to-grave socialism that would bind all aspects of his nation together. "Mussolini meant it to be appealing to people," Goldberg said. "It was a sales pitch for his kind of government. He meant it as we would use words like 'holistic' today, as sort of covering every aspect of life; everyone's going to be included, everyone's going to be part of the community. No child is going to be left behind. That was the meaning of totalitarianism in its original conception."Concurrently, the Philadelphia Inquirer seeks to get itself even deeper into bed with government, requesting a bailout from the state's Democratic governor. Needless to say, Il Duce would approve. Related: The Illustrated Stimulus. The Words Of The Profits Were Written On The Snuggie Shawls
By Ed Driscoll · January 29, 2009 01:13 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Steve Green writes, "They Don't Like Profits Anyway": Via Melissa Clouthier comes this tasty little item from Gawker:Even as yet another east coast paper begs for a federal bailout, there's hope yet for another legacy media: "Snuggie Sales Prove TV isn't Dead"!...today the NYT runs an op-ed from Yale's hallowed money manager David Swensen, in which he recommends that newspapers turn themselves into non-profits with endowments (we agree, philosophically at least). "As long as newspapers remain for-profit enterprises, they will find no refuge from their financial problems." He's talking to you, NYT!The NYT is already headed towards zero profits for as far as the eye can see -- so why not make it official? Well, that's a relief. Rush Limbaugh Spars With CNBC Hosts
By Ed Driscoll · January 29, 2009 11:46 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Infidels Are Cool has the video of CNBC calling Rush to harangue him over his Wall Street Journal op-ed. It's been a while since I've watched the ostensibly business-oriented CNBC; when did their hosts start sounding like they're auditioning for the even further leftwing MSNBC? Related: Roger Kimball suggests that maybe President Smoot "should listen to Rush Limbaugh after all." One Day Less Of Mail A Week? Post Office Says Maybe
By Ed Driscoll · January 28, 2009 02:26 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Everyone knows what email is--but what is this..."Post Office" you speak of? (H/T: Matthew Sheffield) Walter Duranty, Tanned, Rested, And Ready
By Ed Driscoll · January 28, 2009 12:54 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
The New York Times: for show trials before they were for them. Maureen Dowd writes: It's psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.Just as long as we start with the management who plowed this firm's stock price into the ground over the last five years. Lt. Hurwitz, Tanned, Rested, And Ready
By Ed Driscoll · January 28, 2009 12:47 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
There's a marvelous scene in Lawrence of Arabia in which Col. Brighton (played by Anthony Quayle) says to his superior officer, "Look, sir, we can't just do nothing", who replies, "Why not? It's usually best." The Politico explains the economic "Case For Doing Nothing." It's the best way to prevent "totally impractical" stimulus plans from causing the fat lady to sing... Baby Boomers And The Hysterical Style
Victor Davis Hanson writes, "If anyone wished to know what the baby-boomer generation would do when, in its full maturity, it hit its first self-created, big-time recession, I think we are seeing the hysterical results": After two decades of unprecedented economic growth, rampant consumer spending, and unimaginable borrowing to satisfy our insatiable appetites, we are suddenly going into even larger debt and printing trillions of dollars in paper money to ensure that someone else after we are gone pays the debt. As if the permanent solution to a financial panic and years of spending wealth we didn't create were a government take-over of the economy in the manner we currently witness in Spain, Italy, and Greece--or the high-tax, high-spend ethos of a bankrupt California.California's already reached the tipping point, and the rest of the nation isn't that far behind it--which is why James Pethokoukis proffers "10 Reasons to Whack Obama's Stimulus Plan." Big Government--Is There Nothing We Can't ABC It Do?
By Ed Driscoll · January 25, 2009 04:47 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · War And Anti-War
An ABC morning show host in 2007: American morale is at an all time low because 9/11 couldn't have happened without massive government help. An ABC morning show host in 2009: "Consumer confidence has to rebound, which won't happen without massive government help." How We Got Here
By Ed Driscoll · January 25, 2009 01:08 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies · The Memory Hole
As President Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress attempt to ladle copious amount of pork to their cronies disguised as a "stimulus package", it's worth reading Bruce Bartlett's thorough exploration in Forbes of "the role of government in economic recovery", beginning with a short, sharp primer on the makings of the Depression, and then a look at today's economy. Here's a sample: No one today believes that the Great Depression just happened or dragged on as long as it did because the private sector kept making mistake after mistake after mistake. It only made them and continued to do so because government interfered with the normal operations of the market and prevented readjustment from taking place.Read the rest. (Via Jonah Goldberg.) I Nominate This Man For Treasury Secretary
By Ed Driscoll · January 23, 2009 05:12 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Forget Timothy Geithner--check out Philip J. Heinker. He's taken the Hip Accountants' Oath! GE Profit Drops 46 Percent
By Ed Driscoll · January 23, 2009 10:55 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Assault On Reason
In a discouraging report for the American economy, General Electric Co. posted a 46 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings on Friday and warned of a "tough environment" this year as it struggles with its ailing finance business.To quote Mark Steyn's brilliant essay on previous reports of fresh disaster, "Hey, that's great news, isn't it?" It is according to what GE's more public representatives have told us. In November of 2007, one of the conglomerate's television networks urged us to turn off our lights (manufactured by GE) for the environment. Six months later, Barack Obama surely gave a tingle up the collective leg of one of their other television networks when he told told voters: "We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world's resources with just 4 percent of the world's population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we'll be fine."And at the start of 2008, the spouse of his leading opponent in the Democratic primaries was quoted as saying: We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.Mission accomplished! Give Them Time, They'll Have Both
By Ed Driscoll · January 22, 2009 07:20 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
"Which is worse: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi controlling your doctor--or controlling your bank?" The Man Who Sold the World
By Ed Driscoll · January 22, 2009 04:31 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law
Someone on Fleet Street is a lad insane, as "Agent Bedhead" writes, if they think David Bowie(!) set in motion our current financial maelstrom. Personally, I blame these cracked actors. (Via Colorado's thin white vodka-swilling duke.) Update: Problem solved--evidently, "Kate Moss Will Fix That Dreadful 'David Bowie Recession'". Let's dance! Back To The Future!
By Ed Driscoll · January 21, 2009 12:38 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
The Obama administration time machine continues to explore recent history--as we (and CNN) noted in the previous post, yesterday was a revisit to Woodstock; will their economic policy send them--and the rest of us--Back to the Thirties? The Virtue Of Selfishness
By Ed Driscoll · January 20, 2009 05:21 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Future and its Enemies
Jonah Goldberg posts his initial thoughts on President Obama's speech and notes, "I agree with most of the folks here that it wasn't as well-written as I expected. There were some awfully clunky cliches in there", after listing a few, he hits upon a great observation regarding freedom versus collectivism: One last point, for now. There was also a great deal of nonsense in there. Ramesh already mentioned the bit about harnessing the sun and whatnot to power our factories (why not distill energy from our strategic unicorn manure stockpile). But the line that grated on me most came from the bit about service and sacrifice. He said:Which may be one of the reasons why one of the most visible scorecards for that prosperity was so off today.For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.No, "they" didn't. Slaves certainly didn't endure the lash of the whip out of a sense of service and sacrifice for us. That is one of the reasons slavery is so evil; it isn't voluntary. Suffice it to say that if that line had come out of a different man's mouth it would not be nearly so well-received. Nor did those immigrants make their sacrifices for "us." They made them for themselves, for their own pursuit of happiness, for their families. Not Quite The Second Coming Of Lincoln
By Ed Driscoll · January 20, 2009 01:53 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Democracy In America
One leading economic indicator wasn't impressed by today's festivities, as Reuters notes: U.S. stock indexes extended losses and hit session lows on Tuesday after President Barack Obama's inauguration speech provided few new details about measures to tackle the growing economic crisis.To be fair, an inauguration speech isn't exactly the place to lay out a new administration's fiscal agenda, but still, between this, Ted Kennedy passing out, the racially charged benediction from Rev. Joseph Lowery, whatever caused Rahm to flip the Emanuel, and the jeering of the incoming president's supporters at the outgoing commander-in-chief, there were lots of fumbles during the ecstasy. Update: Perhaps this (via the Professor) helps to explain today's market swoon: "In the mind of the anti-free-marketeer, the government occupies the same kind of intellectual territory as the divine designer in the mind of an anti-Darwinian." More" The temperature wasn't the only thing icy in DC today. Witness: "The awesomely awesome Carter/Clinton snub"--complete with video! Let's Have Inflation!
By Ed Driscoll · January 19, 2009 08:50 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Backwards ran the logic until reeled the mind--where it all ends knows Weimar. (HT: I/P) And Howard Roark's A Lot Better Architect Than Le Corbusier
By Ed Driscoll · January 19, 2009 07:41 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Future and its Enemies
Kathy Shaidle writes that Ayn Rand is slowly being embraced in one of the nations that needs her the most: France. Meanwhile, England, on permanent recessional since about the 30 seconds after Kiplings' poem/warning in 1897 (save for a timeout in WWII) is taking grudging steps to re-enter the late 19th century as well: "In Britain, the slowly dawning realization that burglary is a serious crime." The Great Relearning continues apace. The Coming Post-Inauguration Letdown
By Ed Driscoll · January 18, 2009 02:04 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
As Jonah Goldberg writes in the L.A. Times, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama was every candidate you wanted him to be. But that's about to change once he actually takes office and begins to govern: Presidential inaugurations are in many ways the high-water marks of any presidency because they're so full of hope. All things seem possible. The rivalries and backbiting haven't set in yet, at least not publicly. Even the inevitable disappointments over Cabinet picks and White House staffing are tempered by the wide-eyed dreams of an ambitious agenda. Everyone -- or at least everyone who backed the guy -- has that "we can make this the best yearbook ever!" feeling.Not the least of which is Obama's infamous statement on bankrupting the coal industry, uttered a year ago in the midst of an hour long conversation the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle and then unnearthed by a blogger in the last weekend of the election; the closest anyone remotely associated with the feckless McCain campaign came to delivering an October surprise. After The One's latest flip-flop on this issue, Ed Morrissey wonders if the freshness dating has expired on that statement--but concludes, don't be too sure. Fatal Attraction
Orrin Judd looks at a bitter clinging (but certainly not a sweetie) Nancy Pelosi at odds with the incoming president and quips, "At some point over the next two years, he's gonna find that labradoodle boiling away in a pot on the White House stove...." "Unemployment Is Up. The Stock Market Is Down. Let's Party"
By Ed Driscoll · January 17, 2009 03:59 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
Surprisingly harsh words from Obama's friends at AP to The One: Unemployment is up. The stock market is down. Let's party.Merely a disaster area, as Mark Steyn notes. Gleichschaltung Watch
By Ed Driscoll · January 17, 2009 01:44 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Making of the President
Via the Liberal Fascism blog, some thoughts from Byron York and Jay Nordlinger on all-enveloping corporate Obama worship. And much more from Debbie Schlussel, who calls into yesterday's B-Cast on Breitbart.tv to discuss Obama taking central command of the internecine battles in the cola wars--and getting his own trading cards as a result: Related thoughts from Hot Air's Allahpundit. Update: "Everybody remembers those pro-Bush celebrity videos sponsored by major corporations, right? Right?" Don't Tweet This At Home, Kids
By Ed Driscoll · January 16, 2009 11:08 AM · An Army Of Davids · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The New, New Journalism
Media Bistro's "AgencySpy" blog explains "why it's vitally important to watch what you say on Twitter": A representative from Ketchum New York (a PR and Marketing firm) heads to Memphis to give a big presentation to their big client, FedEx, and totally offends everyone who works there before even stepping foot in the building.Now that you know what not to do, John Hawkins has assembled "The Super Awesome Right Wing News Twitter Guide For Newbies." (Main story originally found, naturally enough, here.) Related: Via Melissa Clouthier, helpful new media definitions--like, um "Twitter!"--are defined definitively, here. Feds Become Largest Shareholder In Bank Of America
By Ed Driscoll · January 16, 2009 10:50 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Currently up on the Drudge Report is the headline, "BANK OWNED BY AMERICA; FEDS BECOME LARGEST SHAREHOLDER." Talk about burying the lede--Drudge's headline is real story of this article from the New York Times' spinoff the International Herald Tribune. Which is why, naturally, it's buried five paragraphs in. But as Frank Martin wrote last month: This is how it ends. As of right now, the Senate IS the banking system. You just try prying the banking system from the hands of the Senate now. You want a loan? Sure, lets just check your voting record, lets see what kind of car you want to buy, oh darn its not a certified government "greenmobile", well sorry Mr. Consumer, we cant give you a loan for that new Toyota Dual Axle truck for your ranch, but how about a new Chevy Cobalt Hybrid? Sure thing. Sign right here Mr. Consumer.Or as I asked last month: And for some other video looks on how we got here, click here and here. Update: Am I blue? You'll be, too: Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital Blog mentions a new buzz word in energy policy discussions--blue jobs--jobs associated with oil and natural gas industries. The industry is pushing to keep the oil and natural gas energy relevant in America's discussion of energy policy to force policy makers to keep them in mind in the formulating of new policies and programs. The gas lobby wants to keep "blue jobs" in demand, jobs that total 5.8 million nationwide--in both direct and (sometimes very) indirect jobs that the gas lobby says are dependent on natural-gas related activities.In today's "POR economy" (centrally planned to perfection and/or perdition by the bluest of the Blue Staters, Pelosi, Obama, and Reid) aren't all jobs blue jobs? "The Mainstream Media, It Be Troubled"
By Ed Driscoll · January 16, 2009 02:26 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Ed On The 'Net · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The New, New Journalism
Dr. Melissa Clouthier takes the pulse of the MSM, with some assistance from Charlie Martin of Pajamas Media's "Edgelings" tech blog, and a little video help from your humble narrator himself. And speaking of a troubled MSM, Newsbusters reports that the Minneapolis Star-Tribune has declared Chapter 11. Its best-known journalist in the new world of the Blogosphere and Satellite Radio directs us to this piece in the Minnesota Post for some additional details of the Strib's bankruptcy and what may be to come. (But not before including a sublime screen capture from A Night To Remember, taken at the apex between iceberg and eternity.) Related: "Your MSM Moment of Zen." I'm Not Dead Yet...I'm Getting Better!
By Ed Driscoll · January 14, 2009 10:47 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted · Oh, That Liberal Media!
The mere existence of this headline--"CBS says ratings success proves network TV viable"--is proof that the clock is ticking on the model, at least in its current form. Imagine such a headline running 10, 20, 40 or 50 years ago. Meanwhile, Galley Slaves notes that the clock may be ticking slightly faster for one of CBS' competitors. Of course, the viable lifespan of the original big three is likely to exceed a far older component of the legacy media. For Green Consumers, It's The Fiscal Blues
By Ed Driscoll · January 14, 2009 08:48 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies
The New Jersey Star-Ledger asks, "Are we done with green?" Now that money is tight, will environmentalism turn out to have been just a passing trend -- the political equivalent of the pet rock?Actually, the two are remarkably intertwined, as Mark Steyn noted at the end of last year, and Bill Clinton at its start. And presumably these fellows are getting quite a chuckle out the current economy. UAW's "Legacy" At GM
By Ed Driscoll · January 14, 2009 07:24 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
In the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Ralph R. Reiland has this classic quote from a representative of the union that made General Motors the automaker it is today--the one we're all paying to keep in business: "No one wants to see GM go down the tubes," said picketing Jim Brown. "But we have to keep our standard of living, and GM is going to have to cooperate."Reiland concludes: And so, at last count, GM has lost $70 billion since 2004, the number of UAW members has been cut in half since 2004 at GM, Chrysler and Ford, from 300,000 to 150,000, and the rest of us are now stuck with the tab for the rescue.Meanwhile, the city of Detroit finally has a bond rating to match its sterling quality of life. The great Walter Williams writes: Congress and the White House aren't finished with the taxpayers yet. Once a bailout parade gets started, it has a momentum of its own. President Bush, citing danger to the economy, signed a $17 billion bailout for the auto industry. According to the Wall Street Journal article "Shovel-Ready on Campus" (December 17, 2008), presidents of 36 state government universities have called for bailouts; they call it a "federal infusion of capital." Soon, if not already, state governors and city mayors will descend on Washington seeking bailouts. California is $15 billion in the hole, Florida $5 billion and things are so bad in Michigan that the governor has shut down one prison to save money.As P.J. O'Rourke surveys the leftwing lethargy and concludes, "we may speak without compunction of the failed Obama presidency: What a blessing that it's a failure. Things are bad enough the way they are. There's already a huge ongoing government intervention inThese days, we call it this. (HT: CG) Paging Mr. Steyn To The Red Courtesy Phone, Please
By Ed Driscoll · January 14, 2009 03:06 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
As Mark Steyn wrote in 2005, "It's the Demography, Stupid"--or the lack thereof: "Shaky economy means 'bye-bye baby' for some." Also Just In: Sun Rises In East, Sets In West
By Ed Driscoll · January 13, 2009 09:35 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
James Pethokoukis notes that "Big Media Distorts Bush Economic Record." It's a mixed-bag of course--just not the one being peddled on the 6:30 Evening News. Pethokoukis writes: The past four months have been terrible. You had the money-sucking leviathan that is the poorly implemented Paulson Plan -- and Bush's failure to push better alternatives. You had the Detroit bailout. You had a failure to vigorously defend the free-market approach that, when implemented 25 year ago, saved the imploding economies of the West and helped win the Cold War. We really needed the Explainer-in-Chief to bring his A-game. Didn't happen.He had an A-game as a speaker? Of President Bush's attributes as a leader (the best of which I'll cheerfully acknowledge), explaining anything was not his strong suit. Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg writes that his successor "is interested in any idea, as long as its peddler starts from the same 'non-ideological' assumption that government experts know best": The current climate reminds former Freddie Mac economist Arnold Kling of the battle of the Somme in World War I (a war everyone knew would be over in six months). "Having experienced nothing but failure using offensive tactics up to that point, the Allies decided that what they needed to try was ... a really big offensive," Kling writes. "My guess is that in 1916, anyone who doubted his own ability to direct an enormous offensive involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers would never have made it to general. Similarly, today, anyone who doubts the ability of a handful of technocrats to sensibly allocate $800 billion would never make it into government or the mainstream media."Read the rest. "Obama Pays Off His Base: The Media"
By Ed Driscoll · January 13, 2009 07:58 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
"A source of mine called to say that Obama's reached out to some newspaper publishers about giving papers a tax break in the stimulus package." Man, from P.J. O'Rourke's fingers to the Connecticut papers' mouths, to Obama's ears. If this story actually is true, it's yet another example of reality invariably trumping fiction. Quote Of The Day
"This is a federal building and he doesn't pay federal taxes so he can't come in." If only that worked for prospective treasury secretaries being vetted, in addition to cats. No Wonder I Need A Smoke
By Ed Driscoll · January 13, 2009 12:41 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Forbes posits that "The Most Intense Period Of The Recession Is Behind Us"--hope they're right and the worst is over. Though that won't stop incoming President Obama, his pliant new Congress, and the Jeff Gannon-ish legacy media for calling for ever-higher taxes and tossing around trillion dollar (wait--two trillion dollars!) spending packages. Leaving The Parentheses
As this AP article notes, 2008 was "the fourth consecutive year that more residents decamped from California for other states than arrived here from within the U.S.": The number of people leaving California for another state outstripped the number moving in from another state during the year ending on July 1, 2008. California lost a net total of 144,000 people during that period--more than any other state, according to census estimates. That is about equal to the population of Syracuse, N.Y.As the AP article noted, "The state with the next-highest net loss through migration between states was New York, which lost about 125,000 residents." New York's governor got a sense of his state's outward migration patterns when he took office last year: Paterson cited a number of personal friends, all former New Yorkers, who have contacted him from out of state since his ascent to the governorship. "A friend from primary school, Randy San Antonio, told me he moved to Dallas 20 years ago," Paterson began. "Another friend, Randy Watts, had moved to Reno. A friend from Syracuse, Marvin Lee Simons, said he's working in Lower Manhattan. I said we should get together . . . and he said, 'Well, I don't live in New York. I live in western Pennsylvania.' Jeff and Stacey Stackhouse wanted to start a business on Long Island. They moved two years ago--they're trying to start their business in Charlotte, North Carolina. They couldn't pay the taxes here."Shannon Love (H/T: IP) writes that California is following "the grim path of the Great Lakes states": Those states where once the industrial dynamo for the entire Earth, yet they destroyed that enormous economic dominance by political policies hostile to economic creativity. Likewise, California had a golden era as an economic and cultural dynamo. Well up until the late 1980s California was the place to go to make it big. People moved from other states to California. Now, internal migration has reversed. California looks less like a dreamland and more like basket case waiting to happen.Can't say I blame people for wanting to decamp to redder ground. Or as Glenn Reynolds wrote yesterday, "It's like the whole high-tax, high-regulation thing isn't working for them." Theodore Dalrymple is currently enraging his fellow MDs by writing that "addicts do not need any medical assistance to stop taking heroin."But to challenge Sacramento and Albany's addictions, a cultural sea change is needed--one that I can't imagine arriving to either of what Tom Wolfe once dubbed "the Parentheses States" anytime soon. "Obama Says Recession Requires Scaling Back Promises"
By Ed Driscoll · January 11, 2009 10:26 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · The Making of the President
Fortunately, The One was careful to under-promise during the campaign in the event of just such a contingency. Freak Out In A Barack-Age Daydream
By Ed Driscoll · January 11, 2009 10:12 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
The Charlie Foxtrot blog looks at one possible upcoming charlie foxtrot--"The Coming Obama Bubble." Meanwhile, James Pethokoukis explains "Why Obama is Causing a Liberal Freakout." Finally, James Piereson notes that those on the left who are calling for a New New Deal are focusing on the half of the New Deal that largely failed, while ignoring, and in some cases condemning, the early portions that more or less worked: Some of the most constructive and long-lasting features of the New Deal are those that today's would-be reformers ignore when calculating its achievements--most particularly, the broad financial reforms that FDR engineered during his first 100 days. FDR moved quickly in 1933 to address the failures in the financial system that were obvious sources of the continuing deflation and downward spiral in the economy, immediately declaring a bank "holiday" (to stop bank panics) and removing the United States from the gold standard to free the Federal Reserve from its deflationary restrictions. In short order, Congress approved a series of reforms that created a system of deposit insurance, brought more banks under the supervision of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, established standards of transparency in the public sale of securities, and built the wall of separation between commercial and investment banks (in part to curtail the speculation with bank deposits that many saw as a cause of bank failures). In combination, these measures stopped the slide and reestablished the banking system on stronger and more stable foundations. Most continue to function today as pillars of the financial system (save for the split between commercial and investment banks which was repealed in 1999) and, indeed, they have been called into action recently to deal with the current financial crisis.Definitely RTWT.™ "A Wake-Up Call In Liberal Montgomery County, Maryland"
Paul Mirengoff writes that "The leaders of Montgomery County, Maryland, where I live, have for years pledged not to enforce the nation's immigration laws. Any jurisdiction that elects such leaders deserves the consequences." It's always curious what laws local districts arbitrarily choose to ignore. Funny, there don't seem to be any that pledge not enforce the federal tax code--otherwise, welcome to the boom town! US Newspapers Fight For Survival
By Ed Driscoll · January 11, 2009 02:54 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
With the news of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer spotting icebergs off the port bow, this edition of Breitbart.tv's B-Cast from last month on the topic of the rocky future of newspapers in general is well worth your time: As is our recent video on the topic if you've missed it: Break Out The Stone Temple Pilots Records
As Don Surber writes, "Dude, here's our recession." Unemployment hits historically high levels not seen in years--but perhaps not as many years as the Associated Press wishes. As Ed Morrissey wrote yesterday: Employers shed over a half-million jobs in December as the year ended in the grips of a full-blown recession. The total job loss for 2008 went over 2.6 million, mostly in the latter half of the year, as prospects for growth look dim indeed. Even with all of that truly bad news, the AP manages to add a little hyperbole:In other words, break out your Stone Temple Pilots, Coverdale-Page, and Pearl Jam CDs and drink in deeply the vibe of 1993.The U.S. unemployment rate bolted to 7.2 percent in December, the highest since early 1993, as nervous employers slashed 524,000 jobs.Uh, okay, thanks for the no-context context. Job losses in 1945 were catastrophic for a nation of 132 million people. We have over 300 million today, and we have increased the workforce by a much larger factor as women have entered the workplace. Total employment in December 1945 was 39.111 million Americans. Total employment in December 2008 was 138.078 million Americans. But give incoming President Obama a few years, and Artie Shaw will safely be back in vogue. (Via Maggie's Farm.) Impending Deciders' Demise Incites Delight
By Ed Driscoll · January 10, 2009 11:25 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
For the past few years, I've seen a number of blogs, and particularly Ace of Spades refer to the legacy media as "The Deciders." I didn't realize its origin was this quote from David McCumber, managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "I understand that people have a hard time with the concept that we get to decide what is news and what isn't, and what is fair and what isn't."Robert places that quote into sharp context--and reminds the Seattle Post-Intelligencer who the real deciders are: consumers, i.e., the readers--or the lack thereof. Summon the meteors--because, "Sometimes, the future shows up way sooner than anyone expected." Stuck On Marginally Less Stupid
By Ed Driscoll · January 8, 2009 01:30 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
As Clemenceau (or maybe Stanley Kubrick) once said, the allies won the first World War because our generals were marginally less stupid than their generals. That meme still very much resonates, as Arnold Kling writes: I was reminded of the Battle of the Somme, one of the worst policy blunders of all time. Having experienced nothing but failure using offensive tactics up to that point, the Allies decided that what they needed to try was....a really big offensive. Just as Feldstein and Stiglitz pay no attention to the on-the-ground the housing market, the British generals ignored the impact of machine guns on men advancing over open fields.Lets hope today's leftwing economists are marginally less stupid than their 1930s predecessors. Uh Oh--I Smell Yet Another Pathetic Gatsby Remake
By Ed Driscoll · January 8, 2009 12:26 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted
Back in 2005, I wrote up my thoughts on the dreadful mid-'70s Robert Redford/Mia Farrow version of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's epochal novel thusly: I think Tom Wolfe (piqued at the unauthorized usurpation of his trademark white suit by Redford's Gatsby) once dismissed the movie as "Fitzgerald as interpreted by the Garment District", and while the film did put Ralph Lauren on the map, most of the duds the actors are wearing, with their fat ties and wide lapels, seem much more 1970s than 1920s.But much like Obama reliving ancient failed history with the New New Deal, that's not going to prevent Hollywood from trying again, Tom Shillue writes over at Big Hollywood. Unemployment In The 1930s
By Ed Driscoll · January 8, 2009 10:33 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Memory Hole
Found via the Corner, the Heritage Institute has produced an eye-opening graphic on unemployment in the 1930s, which notes that FDR's New Deal programs never drove unemployment under 20 percent until the US geared up for WWII. The left have been calling for a New New Deal since at least the spring of 2008 before the economic turbulence of the fall, and Obama is more than happy to oblige and spend a lot more taxpayer funds. It's never worked, but why let history stop you? ![]() Update: It's also worth noting that the economy was "pre-socialized" by President Bush in the last months of his administration. There's often much more continuity in presidents with seemingly disparate policies than first meets the eye. When The Legend Becomes Fact, Print The Legend
The above quote from 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance certainly explains how the legacy media operates. Which is why, when James Pethokoukis explains "Why Obama Will 'Own' the Recession", I'm not at all sure that will ultimately be true. If James is right, it will be because a majority voters understand at least the fundamentals of the financial history that Karl Rove outlines in his latest Wall Street Journal column: Fannie and Freddie are "government-sponsored enterprises" (GSEs), chartered by Congress. As such, they had an implicit promise of taxpayer backing and could borrow money at rates well below competitors.Read the rest, and check out my recent "In Dodd We Trust?" video if you haven't seen it yet, for some further thoughts and links. Update: More from Gateway Pundit, including video. Wednesday Linkfest
By Ed Driscoll · January 7, 2009 12:54 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
The Anchoress' new post is your one-stop shop for linkage across the Blogosphere--though don't miss Michelle Malkin's post on the latest industry gone flaccid that's seeking a Viagra-like injection of federal capital to thrust itself back to prominence.... Jurassic Park Avenue
By Ed Driscoll · January 6, 2009 11:39 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Blair's Law (named after the Bard Down Under, of course) refers to "the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force." See also this: "CBS Buys First Front-Page Ad On New York Times": An advertisement for CBS has become the first display ad ever to appear on the front page of the New York Times. In its own article about the appearance of the ad, the newspaper called it the "latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression." It conceded that the move is "regarded by traditionalists as a commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper." Oddly the newspaper indicated that it could not learn how much CBS had paid for the ad.Presumably it was more than this earlier sweetheart deal demonstrating yet another example of Blair's Law in action. But yes, it's amazing how quickly aphasia affects the media when reporting on itself. Finish Line In Sight
Having blogged quite a bit--in both print and video form--on the media's "Red Queen's Race" to bottom, it's only fair that I link to Michael Hirschorn's piece on the final lap of the race: "End Times": Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print--the moment when, amid a panoply of flashing lights, press conferences, and elegiac reminiscences, the newspaper presses stop rolling and news goes entirely digital. . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business--like, this May?But as Steven Den Beste notes: Michael Hirschorn writes (regarding the impending demise of the NYT):Fortunately, the media's estate planning at least was remarkably prescient: their newly built mausoleum awaits them.If you're hearing few howls and seeing little rending of garments over the impending death of institutional, high-quality journalism, it's because the public at large has been trained to undervalue journalists and journalism.Ah, several things spring to mind in response to this. "Undervalue"? A thing is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and if "the public at large" considers journalism to be worth very little, then pretty much by definition they're right, because they're the ones doing the paying. The problem here is not that the public is undervaluing journalism, but that journalists have gotten into the habit of thinking that their work is worth more than it really is. (H/T: IP) Saving The NYT
Don Surber proffers a modest cost-cutting proposal to the Gray Lady. (The only downside: It would wreak havoc with the denouement of the EPIC 2014 forecast.) Mister, We're Getting A Man Like Herbert Hoover Again
Just as Virginia Postrel spotted several journalists hot for "Depression Porn", Ezra Levant reminds us that it's "Not quite the 1930s": So we're in for another Great Depression, are we? Don't believe it.Read the whole thing--as the aforementioned Postrel puts it, along with a link to historic annual unemployment rates, "Oh My God, It's 1993 Again!": The recession is bad and probably will get worse, but historical context doesn't scream Great Depression. Journalists, who are like steelworkers in the 1980s, can be forgiven for thinking the economy is collapsing--we're all afraid of losing our jobs--but the rest of you should know better.Finally, some thoughts on the media and the economy from the Blogfather, including a quote from one blogger who writes, "Compare the last 6 years (or so) of unremitting (and largely unwarranted- until recently) doom-and-gloom economic coverage, against the press' bend-over-backward efforts to avoid riling the American public after 9/11." Glenn adds that journalists "know how to be exquisitely sensitive, when they're protecting something they care about", but it's a remarkably situational sensitivity. Update: Why are journalists so hot for Depression Porn (and consequently led the cheers for Hoover '08)? Because of charts like this. 2008 Auto Sales Plunge
By Ed Driscoll · January 3, 2009 07:59 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies · The New Puritans · The Return of the Primitive
"Auto sales likely dropped a breathtaking 3 million vehicles in 2008, the largest decline since 1974, said Ford Motor's head of sales analysis Friday", according to Knoxville's WBIR.com. As Mark Steyn wrote last week, "Hey, that's great news, isn't it?" What was it that then Senator Obama said on the subject? "We can't just keep driving our SUVs, eating whatever we want, keeping our homes at 72 degrees at all times regardless of whether we live in the tundra or the desert and keep consuming 25 percent of the world's resources with just 4 percent of the world's population, and expect the rest of the world to say you just go ahead, we'll be fine."Staggeringly, the Huffington Post actually has an essay that begins: You are probably wondering whether President-elect Obama owes the world an apology for his actions regarding global warming. The answer is, not yet. There is one person, however, who does. You have probably guessed his name: Al Gore.Al's gaseous rhetoric did much to fuel the calls from Obama and numerous others on the left for fewer cars, higher gas prices and reduced domestic energy production. Along with Democratic tampering with the mortgage laws of the 1990s which also set the current economic slowdown in motion, the environmentally correct left should receive a fair chunk of the blame for today's economic woes. And Speaking Of Auto Companies...
By Ed Driscoll · January 3, 2009 11:52 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Not to mention Red Queen's Races: At the main Pajamas site, Ronnie Schreiber writes, "California Will Be Bankrupt Before General Motors: General Motors owes billions of dollars. If GM fails and is liquidated, those creditors will end up with pennies on the dollar, but at least the automaker has assets that can be sold to fund those payouts. If California and its cities default on their obligations will they sell off the Golden Gate Bridge or Big Sur to satisfy holders of municipal and state bonds? The first installment of the loan package for GM and Chrysler crafted by the Bush administration will tide them over until March. Interestingly, March is also when California will run out of money if Sacramento can't agree on tax hikes and spending cuts. It's entirely possible that California will go bankrupt before GM.Incoming President Obama's lucky in one sense: all of these train wrecks will be occurring very early on his watch. If he's lucky--and like Bill Clinton, has enough Republicans in Congress working to mute his craziest plans--he just might be in good shape for re-election, as the legacy media will helpfully forget all of the bad news of 2008 and 2009. GMAC Bowl Game Sponsorship Goes On Despite $5 Billion Bailout
Which means of course, that taxpayers are funding GMAC's sponsorship of a sporting event with what was sold to the public as desperately-needed emergency cash: GMAC may be in financial trouble, but that isn't stopping the auto lender-turned-bank holding company from maintaining its corporate sponsorships. The question is - will anyone notice?I'm pretty sure this isn't one of the ads they'll be running: There's quite an interesting story behind the making of this mock commercial, if you haven't read it, over at Iowahawk HQ. Reevaluating Media Regulations
By Ed Driscoll · January 2, 2009 01:08 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
In Reason magazine, Veronique de Rugy notes that--as usual--conventional leftwing wisdom regarding President Bush is wrong: When Barack Obama was running for president, he made no secret about his plan to "restore common-sense regulation"--read: increase regulation--by closing the regulatory loopholes he thought the Republicans had opened. Deregulation, he argued repeatedly, is the source of evil. Much like Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression, Obama offered a sweeping, ambitious agenda: new financial regulations, new labor regulations, new energy regulations, and more.Meanwhile, a push for deregulation comes from a surprising source--Brian Lowry of the ancient show-biz bible, Variety magazine, who writes in an essay titled, "Reevaluating media regulations" that "Tough times may call for lax restrictions": If it takes a big man to admit he was wrong, said man needn't be quite so magnanimous to concede that changing circumstances have altered his outlook.Jules Crittenden and Robert Stacy McCain spot one key way that regulations have significantly harmed multiple legacy media; the latter writes: The absurd idea that a Connecticut newspaper might get a government bailout prompts Jules Crittenden to one of the few useful suggestions for saving print journalism:As the Red Queen's Race accelerates its velocity, newspapers lost $64 billion in share value in 2008. Which helps to explain why, as this poll notes, "Seventy-seven percent of Americans believe that the U.S. media is making the economic situation worse by projecting fear into people's minds."Throwing out the FCC's cross-ownership ban once and for all might also help.The FCC's obsolete prohibition on newspaper publishers owning broadcast franchises in the same markets has been bent, over the years, for a few politically-connected conglomerates -- for instance, Cox owns both the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB TV/radio in Atlanta. Other Than That, Did You Enjoy Your Flight, Ms. Earhart?
By Ed Driscoll · January 1, 2009 10:42 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
The idea of newspapers being bailed out began as a post-election joke by P.J. O'Rourke, but since satire can never compete with reality for pure absurdity, it's rapidly gaining steam in the real world, thanks to an insane request by some Connecticut newspapers to a would-be government benefactor: Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.Ed Morrissey responds: The only reason -- the only reason -- that news media is vital to a democracy is its independence from government. Think about this. Is The National Enquirer vital to democracy? [Actually, increasingly so--Ed] Will the Republic fall if Entertainment Weekly suddenly closed its doors? Not at all, not even if the entire paparazzi industry suddenly collapsed.We already know of one Connecticut newspaper that's announced publicly that it's in the tank to its region's politicians, and in the new spirit of old media -- "Comforting the Comfortable" -- it appears it will soon be joined by others. Related thoughts from Roger Kimball, here. 2008: The Year Of The Dropped-D Scandal
By Ed Driscoll · January 1, 2009 05:07 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole
Tim Graham of Newsbusters looks at the letter that was missing from most media reports of political scandal. Perhaps the legacy media simply didn't want to risk hurting their chance to be collectivized into a sort of uber-PBS network. Meanwhile, Tom Blumer explores the other story which quietly dropped off the legacy media's vacuum tube radar: "A Toast to Old Media's--and Old Medea's--Defeat in Iraq." Related: "Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington's 'Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians' for 2008" "Do Not Let This Happen To Your State"
By Ed Driscoll · December 31, 2008 06:34 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
Found via Maggie's Farm, more on New Jersey's woes, from long-time resident TigerHawk. Sustainable Growth Defined
By Ed Driscoll · December 30, 2008 08:33 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · The Assault On Reason
Is it better to give or to receive? Tim Blair spots Bank of America investing tens of billions of dollars in the summer "to make their operation sustainable [and] reduce greenhouse gas emissions"--before receiving $115 billion only a few months later from the ultimate source of gaseous emissions--Congress. Related: Definition of insanity defined, here. New York Stories
By Ed Driscoll · December 30, 2008 08:02 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Democracy In America · The Substance of Style · War And Anti-War
Had dinner at the Four Seasons tonight, on the drive down from New York State to visit my mom in NJ before heading back to California. Three observations: 1. If the New York economy is hurting, you couldn't tell it tonight, as the Pool Room was nearly packed. 2. The filet of bison with foie gras and Perigord truffle sauce main course was pretty amazing. 3. The older, salt and pepper-haired gentleman and his wife sitting opposite us were a seriously class act, picking up the tab for a young Marine in his dress blues having dinner with a young woman in a strapless dress that I can only assume was his girlfriend, fiancee or wife at the other end of our row of tables. When the Marine walked over to thank him, the older gentleman and his wife both replied, "No, thank you for everything you're doing to keep us safe." Which is an awesome note to end the year on, all around. The Red Queen's Race Marches On
By Ed Driscoll · December 30, 2008 07:56 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
Mickey Kaus writes, "Enjoy your daily print newspaper. It's later than you think", as the "Web Blows By Papers as News Source." So with the Red Queen's Race marching on, will the New York Times have the money to pay off--or at least settle--on this lawsuit? Update: Roger L. Simon: "Vicki Iseman vs. the NYT could spell Big Trouble for the Grey Lady." Sound Advice (Trust Me--I Grew Up There)
"When Barack Obama makes his New Year's resolutions, at the top of his list ought to be the following: 'I will not allow America to become New Jersey.'" Escape From New York
By Ed Driscoll · December 30, 2008 06:19 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
Last year, when New York's incoming governor David Paterson replaced disgraced fellow Democrat Elliot Spitzer, I quoted this passage from Nicole Gelinas of City Journal: To lay out his goals, Paterson gave a speech last week similar to the one that Codey delivered nearly three years ago. "We need to take a realistic view of New York State's budget," he said, which is "too big and too bloated." He gently warned the legislature against its usual budget-balancing tricks: overestimating revenues, issuing long-term debt or hiking taxes to cover one-year shortfalls, and trying to use "gimmicks to solve real problems." He added that the legislature's modest cuts to Spitzer's budget proposal would be eaten up by April as tax revenues continue to fall. "We have got to address these issues," he said, "and not by taxing anybody."Which helps to explain one particularly bloated and malicious area of the state's government: Without question, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has the most advanced residency audit program in the nation. We would hazard to guess that the department, whether out of necessity -- because so many taxpayers in the New York region have, at least allegedly, questionable residency issues -- or sheer force of will, does more auditing of taxpayers on residency issues than does any other state, and perhaps more than all states combined.I would hazard a guess that California, the other big blue parenthesis state, is pretty effective in this department as well. (H/T: IP, who notes sadly, "Adrienne Barbeau not included" from this particular Escape.) A Fish Called Recession
By Ed Driscoll · December 28, 2008 05:09 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted · Muggeridge's Law
John Hinderaker of Power Line asks: If you seriously believe that the Earth is threatened with destruction by global warming, then the current global economic slowdown is providential. Reduced economic activity equals less energy consumption equals less carbon emitted into the atmosphere. Environmentalists have been telling us we need to reduce our energy consumption, and live more modestly, for years. Now we're doing it. So where's the celebration of the world's sharp turn Greenward?For that, we turn to the renowned economist, Jamie Lee Curtis... The Connecticut Post: In Dodd They Trust
By Ed Driscoll · December 27, 2008 01:27 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
When I created my recent Silicon Graffiti video on the various and sundry financial meltdowns of the past few months, I titled it "In Dodd We Trust?" It was too good a pun not to use, even though it really wasn't about the Democratic senator from Connecticut per se, but Congressional meddling in economic matters in general. But get a load of this recent story from Dodd's hometown house organ: as one of Ace of Spades' guest bloggers writes, "Connecticut Post: we're not interested in readers bitching about Chris Dodd or Barney Frank." The paper, evidently being buried with letters from readers regarding their hometown Friend of Angelo and his race-baiting friend from Boston, actually wrote: ...All letters are welcome. But there are code words hidden in some that are signals to stop paying close attention -- "Chris Dodd" and "Barney Frank." ...On the other hand, it's nice of the paper to let us know who they're running interference for, and dropping the increasingly outdated 20th century perception of "objectivity." (Via Gateway Pundit.) The Obamafication Of The U.S. Economy
By Ed Driscoll · December 26, 2008 10:53 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
As a candidate, Barack Obama was but one of many of the left in recent years who scolded Americans on their economic largesse--until they seemingly took his advice and drastically curtailed their spending, Mark Steyn writes in his newest column: "Retail Sales Plummet," read the Christmas headline in The Wall Street Journal. "Sales plunged across most categories on shrinking consumer spending."On the other hand, as Tom Blumer writes, "If a recovery begins too soon, a massive 'stimulus' package might not be needed. Democrats consider that a bad thing."--hence even more negative jawboning from the incoming administration. In Rod We Trust
By Ed Driscoll · December 24, 2008 09:01 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · The Future and its Enemies
Hey, glad to see that I wasn't the only one releasing previously unseen and all-too-brief material involving senatorial financial relations two days before Christmas... Layers And Layers Of Fact Checkers
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2008 05:50 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
Glenn Reynolds links to James Surowiecki in the New Yorker, who asks, "Are Newspapers Doomed?" "There's no mystery as to the source of all the trouble: advertising revenue has dried up. In the third quarter alone, it dropped eighteen per cent, or almost two billion dollars, from last year."Another reason why is that errors such as this are becoming increasingly easier for readers to spot. To invert The Who, the Gray Lady will get fooled again, as Roger L. Simon writes: No doubt most of you remember the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times, when the paper jettisoned the reporter for publishing several plagiarized and, at least partially, fabricated stories on its front page. The ensuing brouhaha caused an editorial shake-up at the onetime "newspaper of record."The tipoff that it's a phony should be obvious, Allahpundit adds: In the Times's defense, the letter does have a decidedly Frenchy tone ("Can we speak of American decline?"), but I ask you: Would the mayor of Paris, of all people, be likely to object to a big break for Jackie Kennedy's daughter?Heh, indeed.™ Couldn't the Times have run the email past the ghost of Walter Duranty? That man knows a thing or two about phonying up foreign stories--and he's even got a blog, to boot. (Although, to be fair, it's about as quiet at the moment as the real Duranty is.) Finally, Dan Riehl spots a giant iceberg looming off the port bow of the S.S. Sulzberger: If so, that will be one helluva an exit lap for this ever-accelerating race to the bottom: New Silicon Graffiti Video: "In Dodd We Trust?"
By Ed Driscoll · December 22, 2008 08:00 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Ed TV · Liberal Fascism · The Future and its Enemies · The Memory Hole
In his 2001 book, The CEO of the Sofa, P.J. O'Rourke wrote: The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take 100 of its most prominent numskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.But of course, with every new bailout, the Senate is becoming further and further intertwined with the public sector, and doing increasing harm. As Frank Martin noted in a recent post on his Varifrank blog, "This is how it ends. As of right now, the Senate IS the banking system": You just try prying the banking system from the hands of the Senate now. You want a loan? Sure, lets just check your voting record, lets see what kind of car you want to buy, oh darn its not a certified government "greenmobile", well sorry Mr. Consumer, we can't give you a loan for that new Toyota Dual Axle truck for your ranch, but how about a new Chevy Cobalt Hybrid? Sure thing. Sign right here Mr. Consumer.Hence the subject of my newest Silicon Graffiti, which begins with a parody of Charles Schwab's 2007 ad campaign (with a little help from the cartoon plug-in from After Effects CS4) before exploring the auto bailout, and the banking bailout. And the good old days (by comparison), when Congress would look at a giant corporation and decide the best way to break it up, not prop it up. When it was wasn't defaulting on its own debts, of course. And along the way, a look back at some early warnings from the 1990s, and going even further back, a flashback from Vice President Elect Joe Biden to President Abraham Roosevelt Franklin Washington's early televised fireside chats from the 1860s. And a timely paraphrase of the Bard of Springfield. This is our 23rd edition of Silicon Graffiti ,which began in January of this year--you can explore the back catalog by starting here and scrolling through. It's a mixed lot, but on the average, we hope our approval rating is on the north side of these numbers. (Also posted at Right Wing News, where I'm one of several guest bloggers this week.) The Clock Is Ticking On This Bailout
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2008 04:58 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Congress has less than a week to act on the latest economic crisis impacting the manufacturing sector... (Though check the photo--is that any way for a man to dress when appearing before the Senate?) The End Of Prosperity
By Ed Driscoll · December 19, 2008 01:59 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Plenty of economic gloom in this forecast from Wall Street Journal senior economics writer Steve Moore: World Ends, AP Correspondents Hardest Hit
By Ed Driscoll · December 17, 2008 02:27 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
We mentioned AP's "Byline Strike" on Tuesday, but Dan Riehl does a great job of reading between the bylines: The real kicker is that while the journalists are busy writing about the collapse of the Global economy, or the newspaper industry looking like it's going away, all in times so bad we need a new, New Deal - they went to the table asking for a 10% raise.As Dan writes, it's obvious that even AP doesn't believe the endlessly catastrophic news they've been reading via AP. Well, can't fault them there. "The Great Byline Strike Of '08"
By Ed Driscoll · December 16, 2008 02:23 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The New, New Journalism
Even as newspapers are shedding staff and hemorrhaging money, Roger L. Simon spots "The Great Byline Strike Of '08" amongst journalists at the Associated Press: I read with amusement that reporters and photographers for the Associated Press are staging (via the Newspaper Guild) a 'byline strike.' Say what? To stage a such a strike people have to have heard of you, but practically no one is more anonymous than a writer for a news service. It almost comes with the job description. You are the "Associated Press," not yourself. The AP is not exactly where you find the next Norman Mailer. News service reporters are not even as well known as bloggers. I mean whose names are more famous to the general public at his point -- Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin and (yikes) Markos Moulitsas or [insert any Associated Press writer here]?As that sage philosopher of Springfield, H. J. Simpson once told his daughter, "Lisa, if you don't like your job you don't strike. You just go in every day, and do it really half-assed. That's the American way." And from that perspective, the staff at AP have been doing an exceptional job of alerting readers of poor working conditions there for years. A Parliament Of Dunces
By Ed Driscoll · December 16, 2008 01:38 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
James Pethokoukis rounds up "The 10 Dopiest Business and Economy Leaders of 2008." It makes a nice double-feature with this recent economic-themed top ten list. The Return Of The Old Left
By Ed Driscoll · December 16, 2008 12:36 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Memory Hole
As Jonah Goldberg once quipped, "those who cannot learn from history are condemned to hear George Santayana quoted to them for the rest of their lives"--or this time around, Robert Tracinski from Real Clear Politics: It looks as if we are going to have to relive all of the mistakes of the 20th century one more time--let's hope it is one last time--before we relearn the big lesson of that century: the moral and material superiority of capitalism and the disastrous consequences of socialism in all its forms.Which is why, as early as May, long before the September financial meltdown that paved the way for Obama's victory in November, leftwing politicians were calling for a "New, New Deal": But, as Tracinski notes above, what if the conventional wisdom is wrong about the Old New Deal, and that Risky Tax Scheme, to borrow one of Algore's catch phrases, prolonged the Depression? The Media's Top 10 Worst Economic Myths Of 2008
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2008 10:12 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Memory Hole · The New Puritans · The Newspeak Dictionary · The Return of the Primitive
The Business & Media Institute rounds them up; a Tech Central Station column by Arnold Kling from 2006 explains their origins. In a related vein, Ronnie Schreiber explores "Myths of Organized Labor", memes which also derive from a similar ancestry. Red Queen's Race, Daily Show Edition
By Ed Driscoll · December 14, 2008 07:50 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies
If you enjoyed my Red Queen's Race video last week, Jon Stewart (found via Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds) has a fun clip summing up the newspapers' endgame in about two minutes: Meanwhile, Investor's Business Daily notes that "Some journalists out there seem to be actually rooting for a new economic depression--the very thing that will hurt them more than it will hurt many others": The blogosphere has a name for this syndrome: "depression lust." Virginia Postrel, an Atlantic Monthly columnist who invented the phrase, contributed to a Boston Globe story published in November that collected ideas from various people to (allegedly) give readers some insight into what a 2009 depression would look like.And of course, with the economy slowing, the AP feverishly wishes that Obama will bring it to a stop with tons of business-choking global warming regulations. Bobos In Paradox
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2008 01:32 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Memory Hole
Dissent: It's the highest form of patriotism. But patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. As others have pointed out, two of the most popular cliches among the left form quite a paradox. The Hill reports that Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's Democratic governor called the Senate "un-American" for voting against the auto bailout. (AKA further socialization of the automobile industry.) Back in late September, during that week's Federal bailout, Rich Lowry wrote: Pelosi unloads on House Republicans. Why is it always OK for Democrats to call Republicans "unpatriotic"?Ramesh Ponnuru had the perfect reply: "Because it has no sting." Newsweek Shrugs
By Ed Driscoll · December 12, 2008 01:04 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Or, "Journalism--The Unknown Ideal", to paraphrase a lesser known, but equally appropriate title. "Auto-Bailout Dead As A Doornail"
By Ed Driscoll · December 11, 2008 08:11 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
...At least until next year, according to John Hawkins. More Depression Porn
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2008 08:10 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Substance of Style
Just to follow up on our link earlier today to Virginia Postrel's post on "Depression Porn", Culture11 explores "Recession Chic" in the fashion magazine industry--"Who knew an economic collapse could be so fabulous?" Meanwhile over at Ace of Spades, "U.S. Economy In Recession; Women, Minorities, and [B.S.] Artists Hardest Hit." Depression Lust, And Depression Porn
By Ed Driscoll · December 10, 2008 02:22 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Warner Todd Huston compares and contrasts 2008 and 2001: Jonathan Alter was an early accuser of new President George W. Bush when he and VP Cheney began to try to warn the country that an economic downturn was well underway as he was taking office. As Bush tried to warn the nation, the media jumped all over him for "talking down the economy." Yet, as we watch the reporting of Obama's current down talking of the economy, the media has said nothing similar to the condemnation reigned upon Bush.Why would the media complain about Obama, when they're doing a remarkable job of talking down the economy themselves, as Virginia Postrel notes: If anyone should fear a Depression, it should be journalists, who are already the equivalent of 1980s steelworkers. But instead, they seem positively giddy with anticipation at the prospect of a return to '30s-style hardship--without, of course, the real hardship of the 1930s. (We're all yuppies now.)Read the whole thing. "The Lesser Of Two Evils"
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 08:13 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
Back at the Republican Convention in Minneapolis, Steve Green handed me one of these bumper stickers, which Joe the Plumber sounds like he's in full agreement with: I'm not going to speak for the Democrats but I mean, the Republicans didn't put out a candidate for us to really vote for. It's the lesser of two evils.As Ace's co-blogger Drew M. writes, "Ah poor Maverick, no one really liked him. Alas, I'm sure he'll spend the next 4 years getting even with those of us who voted for him." (H/T: TV) Dude, Where's My Depression?
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 07:37 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
"A new bull market? By one yardstick, it's here." Where Is It Written In Stone That We Need To Have A Big Three?
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 03:18 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
What he said! A collection of soundbites from Daniel J. Ikenson of the CATO Institute on the poor financial health of the domestic auto industry, and why bailing 37 years of bad decisions (by both the automakers and Federal regulators) is a terrible idea: Meanwhile, the 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is looking more and more like it will be a reality--thus guaranteeing even lower domestic auto sales post-bailout. Update: The Brutal Truth. Big Journalism's Bronx Cheer For The Common Man
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 01:41 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The New Puritans
![]() As that hoary old newspaper cliche goes, the goal of journalism is "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable", a statement that makes a hash of any mid-20th century claims to "objectivity." But in the past, most journalists, print or video, paid lip service to the idea of being a champion of the little guy, the working man, Joe Six Pack, or whatever that particular week's fabulously outdated and only mildly paternalistic reference to Middle America was. But that was a long time ago. On Sunday, Tom Brokaw suggested that President Elect Obama tank the economy even more, by sticking it to commuters' wallets: Let's talk for a moment about consumer responsibility when it comes to the auto industries. As soon as gas prices dropped, consumers moved back to the larger cars once again. The SUVs are the big gas consumers. Why not take this opportunity to put a tax on gasoline, bump it back up to $4 a gallon where people were prepared to pay for that, and use that revenue for alternative energy and as a signal to the consumers: "Those days are gone. We're not going to have gasoline that you could just fill up your tank for 20 bucks anymore."And of course, the Washington Post is also pretty cool with that idea. Meanwhile, rather than letting the marketplace decide who sells books and who doesn't, New York Times columnist Timothy Egan doesn't want anyone infringing on his turf: The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?Gosh, there's a shocker; Tim Blair makes quick work of Egan's arrogance--but it's merely the latest reminder that newspapers in general really don't want any competition for their territory. Of course, they're not alone in that department. Update: Not surprisingly, Iowahawk has a few japes at Egan's expense: "Silly Plumber, Lit Is For Crits!" 'Cause Baby, It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 01:14 PM · All You Need Is Ears · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Wow, I really wish I had seen this 2007 clip from McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt, before I shot my "Red Queen's Race" video over the weekend. As P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters notes, Pruitt does a terrific Baghdad Bob impersonation--but only before invoking his heartfelt commitment to "philosophers and rock 'n' roll songs. Sometimes it's one and the same as with Lenny Kravitz's song from a few years ago, 'Dig In.'" When Decades Collide
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 11:14 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Assault On Reason · The Future and its Enemies
Hugh Hewitt notes that President Elect Obama's desire to emulate enormous 1930s-style FDR public works projects may be thwarted by very 1970s-style environmental regulations designed to ensure that nothing gets built anywhere--even if it's by the state. And it looks like the perfect go-between who spans both worlds may not be joining Team Barack. New Silicon Graffiti Video: "Red Queen's Race"
By Ed Driscoll · December 9, 2008 08:00 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Ed TV · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The Making of the President
I hadn't planned it this way when I started working on the new video late last week, but the timing of Monday's news of fresh disaster from old media makes the latest Silicon Graffiti remarkably timely. But first, let's define the title. From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass: "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."Back in early 2007, I started wondering if the accelerating decline of print newspaper readership, media advertising revenues, and the upcoming election year were creating a strange new tone in the media. And near the tail-end of an election year in which the media weren't afraid to let you know who to vote for--and who they were voting for--Michael Malone of ABC and Pajamas Media wrote: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power . . . only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, ten years hence, of retirement and a pension.So here's a look at how the media got there, beginning in sepia toned 1926 when mass media was born with the first radio networks, all the way to the days of the Web, the Blogosphere, and the surprising impact Craigslist has had on classified advertising revenue--and a look at declining newspaper advertising in general. This accelerating downward spiral has completed unnerved much of old media--to the point where a newspaper in a city once known 160 years ago for its residents' spectacular success at mining for gold completely overlooked the solid gold story dropped into their laps, helping to create a remarkably holographic presidential candidate. (For 21 or so older Silicon Graffiti videos, click here and keep scrolling. And a special thanks to my friend Jenifer Toksvig for doing such a terrific job of recording the opening narration.) Mystery Achievement
By Ed Driscoll · December 6, 2008 08:20 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
"New York Times Baffled How a Conservative, Oil-Drilling State Isn't in Recession." (H/T: RSM) "Give me an S! Give me an M! Give me two O's . . . !!!"
2009: A Smoot-Hawley Odyssey: As we've noted before, two of the four horsemen of the apocalypse could gearing up for quite a ride. Related: I'm pretty sure this is a sign of the apocalypse as well. Also Related: " Obama as Lincoln? Obama as FDR? How about Obama as Hoover? Now there's a real story." A Crisis Of Civility
By Ed Driscoll · December 5, 2008 11:02 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Return of the Primitive · The Substance of Style
Exploring the horrific death of Long Island Wal-Mart employee Jdimytai Damour, Kirsten Powers writes, "Incivility isn't just accepted these days--from celebrity news to TV shows--it's glorified:" Last week, the Oxygen Network debuted the third season of "The Bad Girls Club" - like seemingly all reality shows, a toxic celebration of rude, mentally unbalanced people shrieking at each other.Compare Long Island 2008 with Manhattan in 1939. (Found via Kathy Shaidle, who has some thoughts on both Powers' essay and the misremembered legend of Kitty Genovese. For my own recent video look at anger in America, click here.) One Can Only Hope
By Ed Driscoll · December 4, 2008 11:12 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Democrats' plan to tap the Wall Street rescue fund to save U.S. automakers doesn't have the votes to pass." As Steve Green adds, "Keep your fingers crossed. Chapter 11 is the only way to save GM, and probably Ford. Chrysler (except for Jeep and maybe Dodge Trucks) is a goner." "That's Not The Way It's Supposed To Work"
By Ed Driscoll · December 3, 2008 04:26 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies
As John Stossel writes, "Government Sets Us Up for the Next Bust": We are in the mess we're in precisely because of earlier government interference. Easy mortgage terms and guarantees contrived a housing boom and irresponsible lending that could not be sustained. The consequences have shaken the foundation of the financial industry. But instead of freeing the market and allowing the errors to be corrected, the government is seducing the economy into a whole new set of errors. That will lead to the next bust.Bill Gates must have whiplash after what he went through in the late 1990s. Government and big business have devolved into quite a dysfunctional relationship--when government isn't seeking to punish businesses (marketing consultant Dan Kennedy believes he's spotted the next soft target for the same sort of raping the tobacco industry received in the mid-1990s), its representatives are literally telling another that bankruptcy is "not an option." As Stossel writes, why the heck not? (H/T: CG) Related: "Poll: 61% oppose auto bailout." The Way The World Works
By Ed Driscoll · December 2, 2008 11:54 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
With Jude Wanniski and Bob Bartley having gone off to the great accounting school in the sky, it's left to Fred Thompson to sardonically explain why the bailout, or bailouts, or whatever is the catchall name for the overall enormous reaming being applied to those same taxpayers that so offend Harry Reid won't work: Jennifer Rubin adds: Republicans have been struggling to find their political bearings. The Democrats are about to embark on a Keynesian spending spree the likes of which we have never seen. How to respond? How can Republicans possibly oppose the political juggernaut coming their way? They could do much worse than to send this short film by Fred Thompson to every voter in America. As political theater, it is brilliant. As economic education, it is indispensable.Fred may not be the Gipper, but compared to most in the GOP, he's a great communicator. But The Buyout Sex Is Incredible
By Ed Driscoll · November 30, 2008 01:31 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Found via a link in the comments of Ron Rosenbaum's rather vicious attack on Jeff Jarvis, Alan D. Mutter, a Silicon Valley CEO and newspaper consultant has a don't-miss-it graph of how severely newspaper advertising revenues have declined since 2006. How severely? Here's the chart in video form: But Mutter spots the one upside: "Buyout Sex, the other severance benefit": Mary F. Pols, a movie critic who accepted one of the scores of buyouts at the Contra Costa Times, made the best of a traumatic situation by having an affair with a fellow scribe at the California paper, she revealed in Modern Love, the most consistently delectable feature in the Sunday New York Times.Of course, donning fetishwear while engaged in newspaper buyout sex is purely optional. And sheep shagging? Don't even think about it...unless you follow the apparently carefully researched advice found within the Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book." Update: Blue Crab Boulevard adds, "They confused reporting the news with editorializing on the news. These are two, very different, things. People can tell the difference, despite the media's blindness to this. I think it is coming home for them now." Barack And Switch
By Ed Driscoll · November 29, 2008 11:28 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
Victor Davis Hanson writes, "I think Obama may do more for George Bush's reputation than anyone thinks": Obama is a masterful politician who never has had any real ideology or persona other than his own diversity story and history, youth, and charisma that together allow him to be whatever is politically expedient at the time.No, there is another... Life (As Always) Imitates P.J. O'Rourke
By Ed Driscoll · November 26, 2008 02:56 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media!
In the latest Weekly Standard, P.J. O'Rourke says, show me the money: The government is bailing out Wall Street for being evil and the car companies for being stupid. But print journalism brings you Paul Krugman and Anna Quindlen. Also, in 1898 Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal started the Spanish-American War. All of the Lehman Brothers put together couldn't cause as much evil stupidity as that.And right on cue, "Connecticut Legislators Want State To Subsidize Newspapers." As the Great One (Reagan, not Jackie Gleason) said in 1986, "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Last Train To Barackville
Well, now we know what happened to Mike Nesmith's wool hat from The Monkees. Related: Another cheerful furry friend from a bygone era makes his own wistfully nostalgic federal bailout-related appearance here. It's Morning In America!
By Ed Driscoll · November 26, 2008 10:37 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Or at least the man who, along the Gipper's tax cuts, brought you Morning In America in the early 1980s: As John Hinderaker of Power Line notes, Obama has gone "Back to the Future": Today Barack Obama named former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to head Obama's newly-created Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Volcker served as Chairman of the Fed from 1979 through 1987. As such, he worked closely with Ronald Reagan to tame the inflation that ravaged the American economy in the late 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. Reagan reappointed Volcker in 1983.I'm flipping my polo collar up and popping on my Wayfarers to celebrate the retro goodness! Perfect Timing By The Coal Industry
By Ed Driscoll · November 25, 2008 02:52 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Glenn Reynolds writes: ONLY 30-DAY STOCKPILES OF COAL? "A new report from the University of Minnesota warns that an influenza pandemic could disrupt the coal industry, thereby endangering the nation's significantly coal-dependent electric power system and everything that depends on it. . . . The authors, CIDRAP research assistant Nicholas Kelley, MSPH, and CIDRAP Director Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, recommend that power plants stockpile coal to last much longer than the average 30-day supply they have now and that the nation prepare now for disruptions in the coal-supply chain and electrical service. They also urge that coal industry workers be put in the highest priority group for pandemic vaccines and antivirals."Doesn't that work out about right? At the start of his pre-election cruise through all of America's 57 states, President-To-be Obama said he'd bankrupt the coal industry, so they really just need enough to make it through until his inauguration in January, when they can start the paper on Chapter 11. And then once bankrupted by Obama, they can apply for their own federal bailout like every other industry. All This And World War II
By Ed Driscoll · November 25, 2008 10:47 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Memory Hole · War And Anti-War
Mark Hemingway links to Barry Ritzholtz, who has crunched the numbers, adjusted for inflation of the financial bailout: Whenever I discussed the current bailout situation with people, I find they have a hard time comprehending the actual numbers involved. That became a problem while doing the research for the Bailout Nation book. I needed some way to put this into proper historical perspective.Mark adds, "The only expenditure that comes close is WWII, and even that cost less." And speaking of WWII, Jonah Goldberg notes the success of Amity Shlaes and others in reminding the public that the long grind of the Great Depression was made longer by the New Deal. So what's the rhetorical solution? Jonah writes: As the work of Amity Shlaes and others starts to make much of the "new New Deal" propagandizing ever more difficult, many liberals are now switching to the argument that what we really need is another World War Two, minus the war part of course. Paul Krugman said a few weeks ago that WWII was just a big jobs program. And here's Robert Kuttner on ABC's This Week:In the Robert Stacy McCain post I linked to over the weekend, in addition to media criticism, he suggested that "conservative spokesmen and Republican leaders in Washington need to find a safe line of attack against the new regime." Comparing the bailout to WWII offers a big ready-made talking point, for whatever few conservatives (if any) left in DC who aren't prepared to sign off on WWII Mark II.Now, on the question of whether the New Deal worked, Doris Goodwin said to me the other day, don't look at the Roosevelt of 1933, look at the Roosevelt of 1941, 1942.This is at best misleading -- and it's also an enormous "never mind" for liberals who've been worshiping the New Deal for 70s years. As Tyler Cowen noted this weekend, much of the gains from the war economy occured before we actually went to war but after we started selling all sorts of materiel to Europe. And the big gains that came after World War II were the result of the fact that Europe had been flattened and needed to buy pretty much everything from America. Investments in green technology are secondary, historical analogies are rationalizations. Kuttner simply wants a massive new industrial policy. Hey, a trillion here, a trillion there, and sooner or later you're talking about real money. From Trust-Busting To Just Busted
By Ed Driscoll · November 22, 2008 05:43 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Jerry Pournelle writes, "It is probably irrelevant given the election results, but my remedy is simple: any company that is too large to be allowed to fail is too large, and ought to be subject to anti-trust regulation." Remember when the government actually used to attempt to break up behemoth corporations such as Bell Telephone, IBM, Microsoft and other business leviathans rather than prop them up, Weekend At Bernie's style with taxpayer dollars? Hard to believe we'd look back on that period as more benign than today's, but to paraphrase William Goldman, every election year you look back and realize that this year was the worst year in the history of the Federal government. Where have you gone Senator Sherman? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you! If Only 1/1 Scale Was Better Detailed
By Ed Driscoll · November 22, 2008 03:02 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Hollywood, Interrupted · The Holiday That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Man, when Orson Welles said that a film studio was the biggest electric train set a boy could own, he never saw this! (Via Megan McCardle and the Blogfather, who have some thoughts on Christmas shopping. That's the next holiday the left gets the vapors over, once they've recovered from Thanksgiving.) AWOL Obama
In 1988, Teddy Kennedy famously shouted "Where was George" during the Democrat's National Convention. (To which I think it was P.J. O'Rourke who brilliantly responded: At home, in bed, with his wife, sober.) To the question of "Where is Obama" during the market's current turbulence, David Frum explains "Why Obama is AWOL on the market meltdown": As happened in 1932, the incoming administration in 2008 has two very immediate and obvious messaging goals:As Mark Steyn is fond of saying: When the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan dumped some of his closest cabinet colleagues to extricate himself from a political crisis, the Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe responded: "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his friends for his life."Obama has simply taken that aphorism to its logical conclusion. Read More » No, I Don't Think This Is A Scrappleface Headline
By Ed Driscoll · November 22, 2008 11:13 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Gateway Pundit: "Obama Plans to Revive Economy With Tax Hikes & Socialized Medicine." Related: "Can we afford all this? I guess we're going to find out. Here's the good part: There might be some pretty good poster art [We've already gotten plenty of 1930s-style poster art from Obama--Ed] and some interesting architecture. For all our sakes, I hope this pans out." Golden State Worriers
By Ed Driscoll · November 21, 2008 11:59 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies · The New Puritans · The Return of the Primitive
Victor Davis Hanson writes that California "is now a valuable touchstone to the country, a warning of what not to do": Rarely has a single generation inherited so much natural wealth and bounty from the investment and hard work of those more noble now resting in our cemeteries--and squandered that gift within a generation. Compare the vast gulf from old Governor Pat Brown to Gray Davis or Arnold Schwarzenegger. We did not invest in many dams, canals, rails, and airports (though we use them all to excess); we sued each other rather than planned; wrote impact statements rather than left behind infrastructure; we redistributed, indulged, blamed, and so managed all at once to create a state with about the highest income and sales taxes and the worst schools, roads, hospitals, and airports. A walk through downtown San Francisco, a stroll up the Fresno downtown mall, a drive along highway 101 (yes, in many places it is still a four-lane, pot-holed highway), an afternoon at LAX, a glance at the catalogue of Cal State Monterey, a visit to the park in Parlier--all that would make our forefathers weep. We can't build a new nuclear plant; can't drill a new offshore oil well; can't build an all-weather road across the Sierra; can't build a few tracts of new affordable houses in the Bay Area; can't build a dam for a water-short state; and can't create even a mediocre passenger rail system. Everything else--well, we do that well.California's unemployment has just risen to 8.2 percent, the third highest in the nation. Meanwhile, Patterico asks, "Is Arnold Risking a Recall?" Update: Silicon Valley journalist Michael Malone explores the positive benefits of corporate euthanasia as a way of jumpstarting the moribund economy. I Got Your Future Right Here, Pal!
By Ed Driscoll · November 21, 2008 10:59 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · The Future and its Enemies
While those toffee noses at the Daily Mail are busy bitching about when their futuristic cars will arrive, Iowahawk delivers. But does the Congressional Motors Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition come in Ackerman blue? The Party Of Privilege, The Party Of Plumbers
By Ed Driscoll · November 21, 2008 10:31 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Future and its Enemies · The Return of the Primitive
John Agresto writes, "In trying to resurrect conservatism and the Republican party, I fear there's a whole segment of our country we can never reach. These people, whether rich or poor, are not our natural constituents. These are the people to whom things are owed:" We saw it after the Katrina debacle, at the other end of the socioeconomic scale: "Why are you so slow to help us? Where is our money and food? Why haven't you been here, government, rebuilding my house? I know my rights, and my rights include welfare, subsidies, support, and attention. We're not to be treated like those victims of tornadoes in the Midwest who pull themselves together, help their friends, patrol their communities, and rebuild their neighborhoods. No, life is supposed to be easy, big and easy; why aren't you here right now with the support I deserve?" And we hear it from the fat financial community who want the bailout check left at their door while they go on rich retreats to celebrate their good fortune.Meanwhile, Ramesh Ponnuru expects an "overlapping series of Republican civil wars, each with its own theme," on the painful road to 2012. Don't Just Do Something, Stand There
By Ed Driscoll · November 19, 2008 03:44 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Found via Power Line, Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal notes that Obama's first job will be bailing out FDR: His friends advise Barack Obama to launch a "New" New Deal. Maybe that's because the old New Deal is sinking fast.In contrast, Jonah Goldberg channels Paul McCartney, and suggests that Obama simply Let It Be: By all means, let's hope President Obama will project confidence. But maybe he should express less confidence in the government's ability to get people working again, and more in the ability of regular Americans to rise from the ashes of any hardship. In short, don't just do something, President Obama, stand there.Read the whole thing. A Feature, Not A Bug
By Ed Driscoll · November 19, 2008 11:55 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters: Barney Frank favors bailing out the Detroit automakers over letting them go into bankruptcy. Chief among his concerns is that bankruptcy might "bust" the unions. You know, those organizations whose contract demands have put Detroit on the brink of extinction.Exactly. In contrast, Mitt Romney recommends harsher medicine: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." As a proponent of the Airplane school of laissez faire economics, I concur. "Do We Need The Big Three?"
By Ed Driscoll · November 18, 2008 01:38 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
George Will's question is directed at America's automobile manufacturers, but it could just as soon be applied to another sclerotic triptych of dinosaurs from the mass production age: the over-the-air television networks--or at least their kultursmog-spewing news divisions. Hey, Beats Detroit And Wall Street
By Ed Driscoll · November 17, 2008 01:33 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · God And Man At Dupont University
The Onion: "Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?" Meanwhile, in a story that both indirectly involves The Onion and seems tailor made for it, a college professor has sued students who've slandered him: After you've been called racist by some students, can you sue to get your reputation back?(Via Glenn Reynolds.) And You Thought Detroit And Banks Were In Trouble
By Ed Driscoll · November 16, 2008 03:14 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Substance of Style
Ending The Obama Recession
By Ed Driscoll · November 16, 2008 11:23 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
Hugh Hewitt writes: On Friday night's Hannity & Colmes, I noted that markets had been "pricing in" the consequences of sending President-elect Obama and strong Democratic majorities, and my e-mail box filled up with outrage at the idea that the president-elect caused the market collapse.As Hugh concludes, "The election of Obama didn't cause the market collapse. But worries about his policies have certainly taken it lower than it needed to go and will continue to act as an anchor on stocks until some clarity emerges about the direction he intends to head. The sooner the better on that." Worse Than Detroit
By Ed Driscoll · November 15, 2008 12:16 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal
As is obvious to many new car shoppers, Michael Barone notes that "Detroit Automakers a Relic of the Past": The Detroit Three are taking advantage of the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout to argue that they, too, need government money to go on. But as Megan McArdle of The Atlantic argues, the finance firms are different. If credit coagulates, everyone suffers, while if the Detroit Three go bankrupt, their shareholders lose their stake, employee and retiree pay and benefits are cut, and real estate values go down in areas where the companies and their suppliers operate -- but life for most of us goes on.My take? When in doubt, let Airplane be your guide: Update: The governor of South Carolina also appears to espouse the epistemology of Airplane. Sometimes His Guts Are A Little Nuts
By Ed Driscoll · November 5, 2008 06:58 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
Sorry to further invert Bill Moyers' infamous shot at Barry Goldwater, but Jim Geraghty and Ace of Spades describe a huge weakness of John McCain that proved fatal to his electoral viability. Ace writes: There is no "McCainism" as there was a "Bushism" or "Reaganism." Those men offered fairly clear visions (well, Reagan particularly so). Not McCain. Everything with him is just his personal gut, principle-free, just an instinct, an impulse, which often takes him in wildly contradictory places (but he's always haughty about the moral superiority of his decisions).Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty has perhaps the definitive example of how McCain's gut led him to the moment that cost him the election: temporarily suspending his campaign--in service of the ultimately unpopular fiscal bailout. As Karl Rove noted a couple of weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal, McCain's poll numbers never recovered. An Echo, Not A Choice
By Ed Driscoll · November 5, 2008 12:52 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President · War And Anti-War
We shared our immediate election thoughts last night on PJM Political, and Ed Morrissey has his own lengthy election postmortem, which concludes: If the GOP wants to win 60 million votes in future national elections, it has to stand for something other than being Democrat Lite. The Republican Party needs clarity, purpose, and most importantly, an end to the hypocrisy of talking smaller government while porking up their districts. When given only a choice between real Democrats and fake Democrats, Americans will choose the former, which we found out in 2006.Meanwhile, Dr. Helen adds, "It's the economy, stupid": I was just watching numerous young Obama fans celebrating on the Fox News channel and read the stats scrolling across the bottom of the page. They stated that over 60% of voters who were worried about the economy voted for Obama. That, for me, summed it up in a nutshell. So many right-leaning types are trying hard to figure out what they did, what the Republicans did, and why they lost. Each election cycle, there's always a theme. For the last two elections, it was Iraq and national security.Since Good News Is No News, consider this an unintentional thank you from the New York Times to the man who helped pushed the economic issue to the forefront in the media, via his success in Iraq and elsewhere in the War On Terror. Update: With Steve Green likely recovering from the Mother Of All Hangovers, the election postmortem by Will Collier, his partner in Stoli at Vodkapundit is also well worth your time. Well, The Market Is A Leading Economic Indicator
By Ed Driscoll · November 5, 2008 12:06 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
AP: "Stocks fall as investors ponder Obama presidency." Related: Here's another leading indicator: "Party on, dudes!" The Cart Before The Horse
By Ed Driscoll · November 4, 2008 11:28 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
Glenn Reynolds notes that "Obama is already preparing his transition, and having his aides read books about FDR in the hope of another 100 days."--but it's worth noting that the cries of a New New Deal came several months before the financial crisis this fall. You And I Have A Rendezvous With Scarcity
By Ed Driscoll · November 4, 2008 11:09 AM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
In "A Date With Scarcity", his latest op-ed, David Brooks writes: Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once.It certainly is--and I explored several of those pivots in video form, last week. Update: Shannon Love asks, "If Obama's economic policies work so well, why isn't Detroit a paradise?" and notes, "We may soon be living in a repeat of '70s and looking back at the years 1984-2007 as a golden era." "I Want Joe The Plumber Dead"
By Ed Driscoll · November 2, 2008 08:18 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Making of the President · The Return of the Primitive
Whoops--sorry, that's, "I want m************ Joe the plumber dead", apparently caught on an open mic during a newsbreak at San Francisco's KGO-AM talk radio station. More Plumber Derangement Syndrome spotted here. "Operation Investor Class Rollback"
By Ed Driscoll · October 31, 2008 10:25 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
James Pethokoukis explains "Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009": If Barack Obama is elected president next week, 2009 may well bring a concerted and all-out effort by the Obama administration and a Democratically dominated Congress to turn the generally pro-Republican Investor Class into an endangered class by, among other tactics, raising investment taxes and ending the tax preferences for 401(k)'s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts.Via Betsy Newmark, who writes, "watch for it. Don't say you weren't warned." Update: More via the Professor. "What They're Forgetting About The Forgotten Man"
By Ed Driscoll · October 30, 2008 06:28 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
Amity Shlaes reminds us that yes indeed, FDR's policies prolonged the Depression--or as Mark Steyn wrote at the start of the month: "Lots of other places -- from Britain to Australia -- took a hit in 1929 but, alas, they lacked an FDR to keep it going till the end of the Thirties. That's why in other countries they refer to it as "the Depression," but only in the U.S. is it 'Great.'"For most of the 1970s, Archie and Edith sang, "Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again." It took a few decades, but at long last, their wish finally comes true. Meanwhile, Charles Johnson spots one huge budget-busting proposal from Obama, which is troubling not just for its fiscal excess. He Did It Live--#$%@ It!
By Ed Driscoll · October 30, 2008 02:07 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
That's a youthful, if momentarily glazed-looking Bill O'Reilly in the above YouTube clip from a news update twenty years ago (and about five years before this now-viral moment referenced in the above headline). Note the position of the Dow at the end of the segment, which provides some surprisingly reassuring contrast for where it stands today. Head For The Gulch!
By Ed Driscoll · October 29, 2008 08:20 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
Amanda Carpenter catches a sly moment of numerical slight-of-hand as well in the Obamamercial, for those thinking of going John Galt next year. Even Better Than The Real Thing
By Ed Driscoll · October 29, 2008 07:32 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Biggest celebrity in the world already known for his faux-presidential seal and other self-reverential campaign graphics produces infomercial on mock-White House set. Chris Matthews' take? "It was romance. It was realism." More human than human is our motto. But like another product of the Tyrell Corporation, does Obama see unicorns when he dreams? Kudlow & Company
By Ed Driscoll · October 29, 2008 04:16 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Ed On The Radio · The Making of the President · The Return of the Primitive
Larry Kudlow talks presidential economics on this week's edition of PJM Political, also featuring James Lileks' warm remembrance of Dean Barnett, and a round-table pre-postmortem of next week's election featuring Steve Green, Lileks, Ed Morrissey of Hot Air and myself. And you'll never look at Five Easy Pieces the same way again! Obama Flunks SOX
By Ed Driscoll · October 26, 2008 12:35 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
Sarbanes-Oxley? That's strictly for those Joe the Plumber-type suckers in the private sector, writes TigerHawk: Mark Steyn has more on the hilarious and probably intentional failure of internal controls at the Obama campaign. If it were a public company it would have to disclose a material weakness, and its auditors would wonder whether its "tone from the top" had actually encouraged the practices in question. Fortunately for politicians of all parties, we do not hold government to anything like the same standard of accountability that applies to private businesses with public stockholders.Reviewing the last weeks of a campaign that seems like it commenced "sometime during your first child's initial year in primary school", Tim Blairadds, "this is just a guess, but it could be that the rules are different for Democrats." (Video found via Little Green Footballs.) "The News Business Is Already In A Depression"
By Ed Driscoll · October 25, 2008 05:29 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies
Certainly in terms of their collective mental health, we know that to be true from the yin and yang of the Michael Malone and Mary Mapes posts we linked to yesterday, but the Professor also spots, as he calls it, more media retrenchment: "The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., will reduce its newsroom staff by nearly half through voluntary buyouts as New Jersey's largest newspaper seeks to return to profitability." Whatever happens to the rest of the world, the news business is already in a depression.And just as it did with the economic slowdowns in the early 1990s and the period surrounding 9/11, there's little doubt the media's own woes are coloring how they report the business news outside of their industry. The Blue Eagle--Now With Extra Sprinkles!
By Ed Driscoll · October 24, 2008 12:01 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Muggeridge's Law · The Making of the President · The Substance of Style
Echoing the slogan of the 1930s National Recovery Administration, Mickey Kaus writes that even "Baskin-Robbins is doing its part" to get their man elected. The NRA (no relation to this NRA) gave corporations that "did their part" a blue eagle logo to display--and woe betide those who didn't cooperate. Presumably, Baskin-Robbins is hoping to be rewarded with the official "Patriot Employer" symbol for their more recent efforts. Three Completely Unrelated Stories
By Ed Driscoll · October 23, 2008 12:45 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media!
Kathy Shaidle connects the dots and illustrates why the Gray Lady is in more than a Pinch of trouble. NY's Erratic Idiosyncratic Psychosomatic Democratic Chief Of Staff
By Ed Driscoll · October 23, 2008 12:09 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Muggeridge's Law
As Nicole Gelinas noted back in April, when New York's Governor David Paterson was inaugurated, he heard from a number of his old friends, now living out of state: Paterson cited a number of personal friends, all former New Yorkers, who have contacted him from out of state since his ascent to the governorship. "A friend from primary school, Randy San Antonio, told me he moved to Dallas 20 years ago," Paterson began. "Another friend, Randy Watts, had moved to Reno. A friend from Syracuse, Marvin Lee Simons, said he's working in Lower Manhattan. I said we should get together . . . and he said, 'Well, I don't live in New York. I live in western Pennsylvania.' Jeff and Stacey Stackhouse wanted to start a business on Long Island. They moved two years ago--they're trying to start their business in Charlotte, North Carolina. They couldn't pay the taxes here."Gov. Paterson's chief of staff has his own idiosyncratic, remarkably psychosomatic solution to the issue--a severe case of "non-filer syndrome." (John Derbyshire writes about it here, just before being overcome with a terrible case of "non-blogger syndrome.") Two, Two, Two Codewords In One!
By Ed Driscoll · October 22, 2008 10:48 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · The Making of the President · The Newspeak Dictionary
I've always thought socialism was an oft-used legitimate phrase to describe a wealth-distribution scheme involving high taxes and a command and control economy that placed onerous burdens on entrepreneurs and businesses, but was considered, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, much less bloody than the alternatives further towards the left. But lately, it's apparently become a codeword--but is socialism code for being black or being Muslim? Let me know the definitive answer and get back to me, fellas. Update: "Biden advises GOP to focus on economy, not attacks"--and yet when they do, they're smeared by Obama's surrogates, which makes for quite a Mobius loop. Civilians, Friendly Fire And Collateral Damage
By Ed Driscoll · October 18, 2008 07:36 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Muggeridge's Law · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
Back in April, Obama discussed Reverend Wright with Chris Wallace: WALLACE: Did you talk to reverend Wright recently about his decision to make a series of public appearances at this particular point?Obama talking about his wife, back in July: And I've said this before: I would never have my campaign engage in a concerted effort to make Cindy McCain an issue, and I would not expect the Democratic National Committee or people who were allied with me to do it. Because essentially, spouses are civilians. They didn't sign up for this. They're supporting their spouse.I guess once you move beyond the inner circle, the definition of "civilian" becomes slightly hazier. A Quick And Dirty Guide To Class War
By Ed Driscoll · October 18, 2008 02:17 PM · Bobos In Paradise · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Democracy In America · Liberal Fascism · Radical Chic · The Future and its Enemies · The Making of the President
In the Weekly Standard, Sam Schulman asks, "Why is Bill Ayers a respectable member of the upper middle class and Sarah Palin contemptible?" Pour yourself a Johnnie Walker Black and remember. The presidential campaign was going to be about sex--the sex of the inevitable winning candidate. Then it was going to be about race. We dreamed we would atone for slavery and the Berlin Airlift, impress Europe and charm the Arab world. But the undecided voters who will determine the winner are no longer interested in race or sex. They are looking at social class. Which ticket best expresses the values and tastes of the upper-middle-class--and captivates the rest of us who follow the lead of the upper-middles?Schulman's piece appears to have written before a certain Ohio tradesman became a household name. But the blowback caused by Joe's walk-on part in the cold civil war reminds us that it is very much a class war--and specifically, the left's attempts to eviscerate the middle and working classes. Related: Jennifer Rubin writes, "Suddenly, the race card doesn't look as important as the class warfare card." I Am Joe
By Ed Driscoll · October 18, 2008 12:45 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Democracy In America · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
Dave Burge of Iowahawk has a rare non-satiric post in which he writes: We've all witnessed a lot of insanity in American politics over the last few years. Up until the last few days, none of it has seriously bothered me; hey, just more grist for the satire mill. But after witnessing the media's blitzkreig on Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher, I can only muster anger, and no small amount of fear.Or as Jim Treacher notes: The whole "He's not a licensed plumber!" non sequitur is really fantastic. So, if you happen to be standing in front of Obama when he publicly reveals his socialism, what does the media do? Demands to see your papers. That's just delicious, is what that is.Of course, at Matt Drudge once said: "Roger Ailes told me early on, you don't need a license to report. You need a license to do hair".Or be a plumber. But which job gets your hands dirtier? (Meanwhile, Jim Lindgren spots a tax issue that doesn't involve Joe the Plumber, but an actual presidential candidate. Which is why the issue will never be raised by the media.) "Obama's Macaca Moment"
By Ed Driscoll · October 17, 2008 10:56 AM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Making of the President
That's Betsy Newmark's take on Joe Wurzelbacher, though it's happening in a slightly reverse fashion from George Allen's seminal gaffe in 2006. The establishment liberal media magnified Allen's own mistake a thousandfold. In this case, Obama's Kinsley-esque gaffe that demonstrates his soft socialism is undergoing a far more intense scrutiny than it otherwise would have as a byproduct of the media's declaring war on somebody who was approached by Obama to ask the candidate a question. In any case, it's a reminder that once the Two-Minute Warning sounds, strange things begin to happen: Meanwhile, in his own video series with fellow-NRO-er Mark Hemingway, Jim Geraghty posits: I contend we've passed a threshold in the way the media perceives their jobs; they'll never go back to paying any attention to news that is bad for their preferred candidates, and they'll never again worry about accuracy in stories that are critical of the candidates they hate.Fortunately though, even when the media wiffs a story, the truth occasionally still wins out. Joe's Next Gig
By Ed Driscoll · October 16, 2008 09:32 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
While he maybe the 21st century's answer to Amity Shlaes' Forgotten Man of the 1930s, as Robert Stacy McCain writes, "Frankly, I'm not worried about Joe, who can obviously take care of himself. I'll be surprised if he doesn't have a book deal and his own talk radio show by Election Day." Say, I hear there's going to be an opening over at CNN pretty soon... Keeping It Real
By Ed Driscoll · October 16, 2008 08:33 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · The Making of the President
Wellstone Memorial Redux?
By Ed Driscoll · October 16, 2008 07:55 PM · Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal · Liberal Fascism · Oh, That Liberal Media! · The Future and its Enemies · The Making of the President · The Memory Hole
I've already linked to Glenn Reynolds' post on Joe Wurzelbacher, but this quote from one his readers is worth highlighting: The harassment of Joe the plumber is the singular biggest mistake of the Obama campaign. The MSM is making Joe a martyr. Heck, DKos just published Joe's home address. Obama is now not only a Marxist but a Marxist bully - just another Chicago thug. America roots for the underdog and they will not take this action kindly. If Joe were a hero yesterday, wait a few days.Well, some will, but whether or not the politics of plumber destruction will be a game changer remains to be seen, of course. But the dynamics of the story do seem vaguely similar to the memorial for Paul Wellstone in late October of 2002. It was initially planned as a bipartisan memorial to an earnest Minnesota politician tragically killed when his private campaign plane crashed. The "memorial" became in the end, a hugely partisan pep rally, demonstrating for millions the most rapacious aspects of the far left in an election year. The back-to-back attacks by the establishment liberal press and their candidates on two conservative-appearing middle Americans, first Sarah Palin, and now Joe Wurzelbacher similarly demonstrate how craven the left can act when they smell blood in the water. At least American blood. Terrorist blood should never be shed, of course. |