I’d like to throw these guys in the brig,” he said. “They’re thinking the same old thing that got us here, greed. They’re thinking, ‘Take care of me.’
Well, I wonder why they think that? Let me get this straight… Biden voted to give the banks $700 billion dollars, no strings attached, and is campaigning for an additional $900 billion and he says that someone else is greedy? He gave them the money and now he wants to put them in prison for accepting it.
Local banks are rejecting TARP money because, well because it only makes sense to spend the money on bonuses and corporate jets. Using it to make more bad loans is stupid.
Congress wants banks to make loans, so businesses can expand and people can start buying houses again. But lawmakers also want them to make only trustworthy loans. But there are only so many good loans to make in a weak economy with high unemployment.
So the money’s not going where Congress wants. But where does Congress want the money to go?
We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons. — Wall Street Journal
Don’t forget the billions of dollars they’re giving Acorn. And… wait… wait a minute! The whole farging point of this “stimulus” bill is to spend money, right? To “create jobs?” then why is buying a corporate jet a bad thing? That creates demand for jets, right? That stimulates demand for manufacturing jobs, right? Why is that bad spending, but $600 million for government cars is a good spending? Is there any sense in this mess?
The numbers are staggering:
If we add in the Citi bailout, the total cost now exceeds $4.6165 trillion dollars.
Crunching the inflation adjusted numbers, we find the bailout has cost more than all of these big budget government expenditures – combined:
But some of that $4 TRILLION must be “good” spending right?
If, for example, your teenager came home after spending the day at the shopping mall with your personal credit card and tells you “Hey Mom and Dad, I know that you told me to spend no more than $100, but I spent instead $10,000,” you’d likely be furious. And you would not be becalmed by your profligate teenager suggesting that, because he spent $10,000, surely some of it is wise. — Don Boudreaux
We’re up to our necks in debt! Let’s borrow our way out!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If the economy really does need a “stimulus” then why not simply stop withholding taxes? Simple, easy, direct, effective, and immediate. But no graft.
“You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” — Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s Chief of Staff.
One of the (correct) complaints about the proposed stimulus plan is that it’s full of all kinds of programs that would appear to have nothing to do with any accepted economic theory about what sorts of spending could even possibly lead to recovery. The best example of this is the funds for family planning policy that are in the bill. Of course to those who understand public choice, none of this is a surprise. …
This isn’t just your run-of-the-mill pork. What we are seeing happen right now is that Congress sees this crisis as an opportunity to enact a whole variety of programs that they’ve wanted to pass for years, especially (but not only) the Democrats who no longer fear a veto, and now finally have the chance. Just as the Patriot Act was a bunch of laws waiting for a political “crisis,” so is much of the stimulus package a bunch of programs waiting for an economic “crisis.” The current crisis is just a convenient excuse.
As it happens, the family planning provision has now been deleted from the bill. The bill is over 1,500 pages long. There’s money for ACORN in there. What else? Will the administration comb through the bill to remove pork, or will they be content to react only to the most egregious examples that get media attention?
Government can raise revenue in one of three ways: (1) tax, (2) borrow and (3) inflate. The natural proclivity of democratic governments is to pursue public policies which concentrate benefits on the well-organized and well-informed, and disperse the costs on the unorganized and ill-informed. And there are strong reasons why this bias in policy making will also be biased toward shortsightedness — pay out the benefits now, and worry about the costs down the road. Thus, the natural tendency for elected government officials is to borrow (rather than tax) and then inflate (rather than tax). Deficit financing, accumulating public debt, and monetization of the debt. …
The US has made a lot of bad policy choices that violate the teachings of basic economics and common-sense for over half a century. We have not yet destroyed the US economy through these choices, but we are potentially on that path. The most effective way to get off that path would be to establish new restraints on the natural proclivities of elected politicians (take away discretionary powers in fiscal and monetary policy) and unleash the private sector and the creative powers of entrepreneurs. We can still pull out of this current crisis, but first government must stop making matters worse by catering to the natural proclivities of elected officials (from whatever party). As James Buchanan once summed up the policy wisdom of public choice: “Don’t let the fox guard the chicken coop.”
These days, we are repeatedly told that we have to pass a massive new infrastructure spending bill in order to fix our “crumbling” roads and bridges. Everyone seems to have forgotten that just three years ago, in August 2005, Congress enacted the biggest federal public works program in American history, spending a massive $286.4 billion on the 2005 highway bill. At that time, President Bush and congressional leaders from both parties told us that the new highway bill was needed to fix our infrastructure problems.
Before passing a new and potentially even bigger infrastructure spending bill, I would just like to know what happened to all that money Congress appropriated for the same purpose back in 2005? If that act succeeded in its purpose, it’s not clear why we need another huge federal infrastructure bill now, less than four years later. If it failed, we need to know why.
One reason why the 2005 bill may have failed is that much of the money was spent on various porkbarrel projects, such as the notorious “Bridge to Nowhere,” which is the only thing most people now remember from that bill. It’s certainly possible that the 2005 money was largely wasted because most of it went to politically connected interest groups and districts rather than genuinely valid infrastructure priorities. But if the 2005 bill indeed failed for that reason, why would we expect a different result this time around? You have to be a very committed partisan to believe that today’s Democratic Congressmen and senators are any less committed to lining the pockets of their favored interest groups than their Republican predecessors were in 2005. Certainly, Democrats such as Barney Frank have been more than willing to do that with the funds allocated in the bailout bill. Whether Congress is controlled by Democrats or Republicans, it is almost inevitable that much of the money appropriated in in large spending bills will be allocated on the basis of political power rather than economic rationality. Congressmen who refuse to channel money to politically influential constituents are unlikely to hold onto power long.
It’s simply impossible for the federal government to spend $900 billion effectively, efficiently, or even sensibly. The numbers are too large and the opportunities for graft too numerous. The potential rewards for gaming the system are simply too large for us to imagine–for even a moment–that vast amounts of money won’t be completely and utterly wasted.
If a stimulus we MUST have, then why not a simple moratorium on tax withholding? Why not simply take less from the American public for two months?
Because that leaves no opportunity for graft, and Congress lives on graft.
I’m the “computer guy” to many of my friends. I had a friend ask for recommendations. Specifically, if I thought it was worthwhile buying from Apple.
I told him I’d check on it, but that I didn’t imagine it would be worthwhile. I had no idea how bad Apple would be until I ran the numbers.
For a high end Mac Pro, Apple.com lists a suggested configuration for $2,799. That’s a lot of money, but the machine is pretty impressive:
Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Harpertown” processors
2GB memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
320GB hard drive
16x double-layer SuperDrive
It looks great (but we’d want to add some more memory). Problem is, I priced the same rig, with 180gb more drive space, for $2,360. That makes the Apple $400 more expensive. I guess that’s not sooo bad, since the Mac comes with an OS. Vista ultimate 64 bit edition costs $169 with a system, so that makes the Apple OS more than twice as expensive. Maybe it’s worth it, I doubt it, but maybe.
However, my friend is unlikely to drop 2 grand on a computer and unless you’re rendering massive videos or doing large-scale computational analysis, dual quad core processors (*jazz hands* “Harpertown!” *jazz hands*) don’t actually make much difference. More cores doesn’t mean faster unless the applications are specifically tuned to use those extra cores. Neither World of Warcraft or Club Penguin are specifically tuned.
So I took a look at a “midrange” Mac. The 24inch iMac, which apple retails for $1,799:
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 duo processor
2GB memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
320GB hard drive
8x double-layer SuperDrive
24 inch LCD monitor
This is where it got really ugly. I priced the same system for $891. That’s $908 cheaper. $908. The iMac is more than twice as expensive. But the iMac is white. And you can’t upgrade it. And it’s white.
Now, to be sure, I’m not looking at Dell, or HP; I’m building my own. But that means that I can get better hardware than I could at Apple, Dell or HP. Since Apple switched to a commodity platform, they compete within a mature ecosystem of motherboard/ram/drive suppliers. I can get premium components for less, much less, than Apple charges.
I could also upgrade the hard drive, ramp up the video card, downgrade the processor and bulk up the RAM for what would wind up being an even faster, more powerful system, for substantially less money.
So, I guess this is my offer: if you’re thinking of buying an iMac, I’ll build you the equivalent system and only charge a $400 premium! That’s a $500 savings! Buy three! With the savings, you could subscribe to Club Penguin for 25 years. (Or WoW for 9.6 years.)
Political leaders talk about making the hard choices and laying the groundwork for the future, but their actions demonstrate a different approach. They try to solve problems — or at least to be seen to be solving problems — today without in fact thinking about the long term.
Where will this new spending come from? It could come from raising taxes; but even President Obama seems reluctant to raise taxes during a sharp economic slowdown, indicating that he does know that taxes reduce work, investment, and production. And would anyone propose to raise taxes by $825 billion? Or by the $3 trillion that it would take to cover the already-projected deficits and the current proposed spending? And of course money taxed away from those who earn it is taken out of the economy, only to be reinjected by politicians and planners rather than by consumers and investors. That means, as the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, “It will fall to Obama and his subordinates to decide winners and losers in the banking, financial services, automobile and other major industries, a span of control that dwarfs President Harry S. Truman’s attempt to seize control of steel production.” That’s not good for freedom or for economic growth.
If not taxes, of course we could borrow the money. Assuming a government plunging further in debt to the tune of a trillion dollars a year can still borrow. But again, borrowing just transfers money from private investment to political investment. What we’ll actually probably do is create the money out of thin air on the books of the Federal Reserve. More money injected into the economy surely means inflation, maybe a lot of inflation given the size of the spending already undertaken or now in the works.
Update:
OK, so let’s see….
Give money to the automakers because they’re going bankrupt.
Pass laws making cars more expensive to build.
Make plans to close military detention center.
Make no plans of any kind to do anything with the detainees.
Promise to increase “transparency” in government.
Vote to give hundreds of billions of tax dollars to private banks with absolutely no oversight.
Promise to make the word better for the children.
Borrow trillions of your children’s dollars to make payments to your parents.
Argue that the economy needs a “jump-start.”
Propose spending projects that won’t begin paying out funds for two more years.
Promise to eliminate pork barrel projects from the stimulus plan. (no, really!)
Fill the stimulus plan with highway and infrastructure spending. (Highway spending is the crispy bacon of congressional pork products.)
I find the following video clip heartening. Biden and Obama are in the process of swearing in White House senior staff and apparently it’s the Vice-President’s job to administer the oath. Who knew?
At first, Biden forgets that he’s the one to administer the oath, but he quickly remembers. He then quips, “My memory’s not as good as Justice Roberts’ … Chief Justice Roberts.” Referring, of course, to the flub of the Oath that Obama took at the inauguration.
Ha … Ha. Chuckles all around.
Except for Obama, who’s clearly not amused. Watch closely and you’ll see Obama reach out, grab Biden’s elbow, and steer funny ole Joe back to business, even shaking his head at someone off camera.
Why heartening? Biden’s joke wasn’t off-color, or even rude. It wasn’t particularly funny either… but it was–as so much modern political humor is–a needless, pointless, partisan jibe. Obama didn’t scold Biden, he just… steered him back to business, sending a message that I read as, “OK, enough. We’ve got work to do.”
Despite all the rhetoric, there will be plenty of partisan wrangling in the next four years. That’s a good thing, by the way, partisan differences are real and important, they shouldn’t be brushed aside easily. But civility and decorum are important too and Obama seems, in at least a small way, truly committed to engaging his opposition with dignity.
Timothy Sandefur has an excellent piece on Obama’s executive order to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.
Change™, it is a comin. Sorta. Maybe. OK, maybe not….
Just to be clear: I believe the Guantanamo Bay camp to be totally unconstitutional, and the length of the detention of some of the prisoners there to be absolutely unjustifiable. I think the camp should be closed—and I simultaneously recognize that this is not something that can be done overnight, and should not be done overhastily, given the national security consequences. But realism (a quality notably lacking in some of Obama’s fans) requires us to keep in mind that this order takes only the most meager step, if that, toward actually addressing the constitutional concerns related to indefinite detentions without trial. It does not end indefinite detentions, and it does not require trials. It does not provide counsel, and it does not provide enforceable rights. It does not set meaningful deadlines, and it does not provide oversight. It is subject to no checks and balances, and it provides no enforcement mechanism. It can hardly be said to do anything at all, so far.
More paintings! This time from an artist that I actually know personally and… I actually own an original piece! (How cool is that!)
I’ve had the good fortune to know Michael Newberry for a few years, and every time I see him I am warmed by his wonderful sense-of-life and his radiant, effervescent smile.
There is a place centered low, inside my ribcage, where light, knowledge, and intense feeling meld. My art comes from this place.
This sense guides me through the landscape of art history: absorbing a color here; a technique there; and gives me a sense of connection with all the artists I love. This spark is also the foundation to go my own way, encouraging me try new things, yet, always with beauty and my very best.
I am honored that the collectors in my art family, share this sense with me.
In addition to Michael’s site, there’s the Michael Newberry Archive, with a catalog of 665 unique works.
On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote the following from the Birmingham, Alabama city jail.
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.
Today, Barack Hussein Obama II will take the Oath of Office. Just 46 years ago, the most prominent black man in America was jailed for seeking simple justice. In the space of merely two generations, the most prominent black man in America becomes the 44th President of the United States.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. — “I Have a Dream“
Today’s inauguration represents the culmination of tremendous change and is a testament to the hope and dedication of all the millions and millions of Americans who have ever fought for equality, justice, and liberty. This moment is deservedly historical and Americans are right to be proud, but it is not the culmination of our struggle.
I hope to see more victories like this one. I hope to see the fight against intolerance, ignorance, and injustice continue apace. The first woman President. The first Native-American President. The first Jewish President. The first homosexual President. The first President to embrace sane economic policy.
We will wake tomorrow and today’s problems will persist. Our economy is stagnating, our debt is rising, growth is slowing, discrimination still exists, intolerance and ignorance remain, and we remain the target of barbarous thugs. The struggle continues.
Liberty is not seperable; it cannot be parsed into races, sexes, or categories. We cannot slice our freedom in two, extending “personal” liberty while trampling “economic” liberty. We cannot secure our borders by violating the rights of citizens, and we cannot pursue happiness if we are shackled by rising deficits and growing debt.
The struggle for the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is a struggle against ignorance, prejudice and corruption. The extent to which we cherish reason, respect individual rights, and punish graft and theft, is the extent to which we succeed.
While campaigning, Barack Obama made a point of repeatedly criticizing free trade agreements for lacking adequate humanitarian provisions. He argued that any future agreements should include humanitarian clauses and that existing agreements should be renegotiated to provide for wage guarantees and labor protections.
The focal point for this antipathy is the sweatshop. Reviled and denounced, it has long been a cornerstone of progressive ideology that trade must be curtailed and restricted in an attempt to limit the exploitation of third world workers. This faith in the evils of the sweatshop is popular, widespread, honorably intentioned, and completely misguided.
We need more third world sweatshops. We need more products and more companies to commit to opening factories in the poorest of communities. The simple fact is that as appalling as the conditions is these factories are, the workers they employ have found an avenue out of a grinding poverty and despair that is simply unimaginable to the average American.
Nicholas Kristof writes for the New York Times. I’ve lifted the quotes in this post from his columns and blog. His stories are compelling and disturbing, and they need to be heard.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad. But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough.
Talk to these families in the dump, and a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty, the kind of gauzy if probably unrealistic ambition that parents everywhere often have for their children. …
I often hear the argument: Labor standards can improve wages and working conditions, without greatly affecting the eventual retail cost of goods. That’s true. But labor standards and “living wages” have a larger impact on production costs that companies are always trying to pare. The result is to push companies to operate more capital-intensive factories in better-off nations like Malaysia, rather than labor-intensive factories in poorer countries like Ghana or Cambodia. …
Look, I know that Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She’s wearing a “Playboy” shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.
There’s video below of families and children who live and scavenge on a giant dump, searching and sorting through acres of refuse and toxic waste to eke out a meager existence. This is the barest, meanest kind of scavenging; scrabbling for plastic amid garbage fires and grinding machinery.
Dump Dwellers in Phnom Penh:
It’s much, much worse that sitting at a sewing machine for 14 hours a day. But it’s not as bad as slavery.
“A store would be more profitable,” grumbled the daughter-in-law, Sav Channa.
“The police come almost every day, asking for $5,” she said. “Any time a policeman gets drunk, he comes and asks for money. … Sometimes I just close up and pretend that this isn’t a brothel. I say that we’re all sisters.” …
Sexual slavery is like any other business: raise the operating costs, create a risk of jail, and the human traffickers will quite sensibly shift to some other trade. If the Obama administration treats 21st-century slavery as a top priority, we can push many of the traffickers to quit in disgust and switch to stealing motorcycles instead. — Striking the Brothel’s Bottom Line
Increase economic opportunities for women and you decrease the number of women who are forced into prostitution. Women with economic resources–however small those resources may seem to an American–have leverage and opportunities that help them resist predation. Raise the standard of living and fewer families will sell their children, fewer husbands will abandon their homes, and fewer girls will be forced into slavery.
Free trade increases economic opportunities.
It also increases literacy and education. Along with economic opportunities, globalization makes it harder for corrupt governments to keep their populations ignorant and pliant. As money flows around the globe, so too does culture and expectation. Unfortunately, the same progressive instinct that derides free trade scorns the growing influence of Western culture as a kind of tyranny in its own right.
But cultural exchange involves more than hamburgers and bad television shows; along with cultural exchange comes a change in expectation and a change in the demands of a citizenry. The more communities intermingle financially, the more communities intermingle socially. As financial opportunities rise in third world cultures, so too do expectations.Trade brings prosperity, but more importantly, trade fosters an expectation for more trade.
In much of the third world, poverty is greatly exacerbated by endemic corruption and a culture that favors force, threat, and violence over voluntary exchange. In such a place, trade is an antidote, an antibiotic that works against corruption and vice. Such rhetoric may seem fanciful, but it’s application can be seen time and time again. As trade increases, so does literacy. As literacy increases, so does demand for democracy and accountability. As trade increases, so does awareness.
Americans know much more about the conditions of factory workers in China and Taiwan than they do about the plight of dump dwellers in Phnom Penh or slavery in Kenya primarily because they have much more business with China and Taiwan.
I hadn’t a clue about [Mombasa's] thriving sex business until I noticed dozens of women and several girls and boys, no older than age 10, dressed for sale on the narrow road heading north from the city. …
This situation is just the latest example of malfeasance and human rights misery that follows the weakest governments. Child sex tourism in Mombasa is the direct result of lax local laws and corrupt public officials, including police. The police tried on five occasions to take my driver’s license and hold it for a bribe; one can only imagine how they engage in the finances of sex work and childhood sex slavery. While the core of the problem is poverty, it’s clear that poor governance plays an enormous role in it.
Mombasa’s child sex trade is a disturbing thing to watch, but I found that it’s exploding everywhere in this scenic city, one of Africa’s major tourist destinations. Officially, the problem doesn’t exist, but according to one estimate, up to 30,000 girls between 12 and 14 years old are currently being lured into hotels and private villas along Mombasa’s north and south coasts where they are sexually exploited with promises of riches and trips abroad. …
The rise of this trade is shocking, and the speed of its establishment is staggering. It could only have happened under the circumstances that now persist in Kenya: a culture of corruption that increases poverty and speeds decay. …
In countries with better (but by no means perfect) governance like Uganda, Tanzania and here in Rwanda, child sex tourism is virtually non-existent (but there are signs that the child sex trade is growing). – On the Ground
Trade isn’t the only solution to Kenya’s problems, but it’s the first place to start. Unlike government aid, which rewards corruption and helps prop up whatever political regime happens to be in power, trade funnels money to private interests. Trade that crosses geographical boundaries also crosses political boundaries. But trade is not developed through regulations and restrictions. The laws that limit textile manufacturing, for example, in Kenya serve no one’s interest. The laws keep children out of the factories, but not off the streets.
Finally, there’s personal testimony.
Pross was 13 and hadn’t even had her first period when a young woman kidnapped her and sold her to a brothel in Phnom Penh. The brothel owner, a woman as is typical, beat Pross and tortured her with electric current until finally the girl acquiesced.
She was kept locked deep inside the brothel, her hands tied behind her back at all times except when with customers.
Brothel owners can charge large sums for sex with a virgin, and like many girls, Pross was painfully stitched up so she could be resold as a virgin. In all, the brothel owner sold her virginity four times. …
Pross herself was never paid, and she had no right to insist on condoms (she has not yet been tested for HIV, because the results might be too much for her fragile emotional state). Twice she became pregnant and was subjected to crude abortions.
The second abortion left Pross in great pain, and she pleaded with her owner for time to recuperate. “I was begging, hanging on to her feet, and asking for rest,” Pross remembered. “She got mad.”
That’s when the woman gouged out Pross’s right eye with a piece of metal. At that point in telling her story, Pross broke down and we had to suspend the interview. — If This Isn’t Slavery, What Is?
With the injury, Pross was useless to the brothel and was discarded. She’s currently under the care of a humanitarian organization, is learning how to read and studying a trade. The video ends with Pross saying,
“When I finish my training in sewing, I would like to go home and make a business, like a seamstress.”
