Quotulatiousness

December 2, 2009

Defining Obamanomics

Filed under: Economics, Liberty, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:57

Timothy P. Carney gathers up the tea leaves and provides a useful definition of Obama’s economic philosophy, Obamanomics:

Although robust corporate-government collusion was hardly invented by the current administration, the U.S. has not seen such a consistent practitioner of corporatism in more than half a century. It’s fitting then to name this Big Business-Big Government practice Obamanomics.

Make no mistake — President Bush’s Wall Street bailout was probably America’s biggest dose of corporate socialism since World War II. But President Obama has seen Bush’s $700 billion and raised him another couple trillion — and counting.

The Laws of Obamanomics

Underlying Obamanomics are some basic economic facts and political realities. These are the Four Laws of Obamanomics, paired below with some of the lobbying strategies that exploit these laws.

1) During a legislative debate, whichever business has the best lobbyists is most likely to win the most favorable small print. Similarly, once a bill has passed, the business with the best lawyers and lobbyists will best be able to craft the regulations and learn how to game them. A big business, counting on this fact while lobbying for more government spending or control, is employing The Inside Game.

2) Regulation adds to overhead, and higher overhead crowds out smaller competitors and prevents startups from entering the industry. When corporations, knowing this, lobby for more regulation of their industry, I call this the Overhead Smash.

3) Bigger companies are often saddled by inertia, meaning robust competition is a threat. Adopting regulations that stultify the economy is the equivalent of raising the basketball hoop to twenty feet at half-time: it protects the lead of whichever team is ahead. When Big Business seeks to stultify the economy to hold back smaller competitors, I call it Gumming the Works.

4) Government regulation grants an air of legitimacy to businesses, boosting consumer confidence, often beyond what is warranted. This is The Confidence Game.

The Bush administration was one of the least libertarian in US history, but Barack Obama’s track record so far almost makes me nostalgic for Bush. Almost.

December 1, 2009

Most ringing endorsement Stephen Harper has ever received

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Environment, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 13:33

I never knew Harper had it in him:

This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I’ve broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

That’s George Monbiot, known to his enemies as “The Great Moonbat”, stumping for wavering Tory voters to rally to Harper’s side. I realize he doesn’t intend it to be read that way, but for Alberta, the tar sand project is their biggest economic project for this century, and any criticism is taken as an attack on their economic future.

“Global warming is like pornography for Big Government addicts”

Filed under: Environment, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:36

The mainstream media is still doing a great job of ignoring or minimizing the potential impact of the CRU data leak. Doctor Zero contrasts the gullibility (or worse) of the political classes with the wariness of business people:

Few recent events have illustrated the ineptitude, and political agenda, of the mainstream media more dramatically than “Climagate.” The revelation of email correspondence from the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, documenting various attempts to suppress data and manipulate scientific “consensus” with thuggish tactics, confirms what critics of the global-warming movement have always maintained: it has a lot more to do with money and politics than science. In fact, the global-warming movement is essentially the opposite of science — the manipulation and destruction of empirical data to support a theory whose accuracy was decided in advance.

[. . .]

An objective media would respond to this blockbuster news story with front-page headlines and “special report” television treatment. By now, the authors of the incriminating Climate Research Unit emails would be infamous around the world. Top operators of the global warming racket, such as Al Gore, would be hiding in their mansions, afraid to face the mob of angry reporters gathered outside. Liberals love to accuse big corporations of manufacturing crises and taking advantage of consumers with false product information and deceptive advertising. Here is the paramount example of those offenses, on a scale that would widen the eyes of the greatest titans of industry. If a private corporation had conducted a scam as vast, and as destructive to the prosperity of nations — and the aspirations of the working poor…

… but no private corporation could do anything like this, could they? The global warming scam is the kind of crime that only Big Government can mastermind.

Private industry makes plenty of mistakes, but the global warming scam is defined by its utter contempt for costs and benefits — the laws of gravity that hold businesses in orbit around the free market. The global warming cult maintains that no chances can be taken — we must ignore all reservations and contrary evidence, and proceed as if the worst possible outcomes are inevitable, unless we take drastic action. We have to take this action immediately — not even the slightest delay is acceptable. Members of the global warming cult provide constantly shifting dates for environmental doomsday, painting dire pictures of coastal cities becoming aquariums after the polar ice caps melt.

Australia’s Liberal Party dumps leader

Filed under: Australia, Environment, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:16

After losing a number of shadow ministers over a proposed carbon tax, Australia’s Liberals have replaced Malcolm Turnbull with AGW skeptic Tony Abbott.

Australian conservatives have shown the way by dumping the party leader who was in favour of massive carbon taxes and replacing him with one who stated last month that AGW is “crap.”

This makes Malcolm Turnbull, the suddenly-ex-leader of Australia’s Liberal party, the first major political victim of the Climategate furore. And his replacement Tony Abbott, the first politician to reap the benefits of the world’s growing scepticism towards ManBearPig. Of the three candidates, he was the only one committed to delaying the Australian government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The trouble began last week when Australia’s opposition Liberal party began haemorrhaging frontbenchers, all of them preferring to lose their jobs than be railroaded by their leader into voting with the Government on Kevin Rudd’s new carbon tax.

November 26, 2009

Red flag checklist

Filed under: Environment, Politics, Science — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 08:28

The recent Climate Change/AGW revelations (which the Climate Czar is still assuring people won’t actually change anything) are of great interest to climate skeptics, but the systematic perversion of the normal scientific methods shows how easy it has been for a particular viewpoint to be lauded as the consensus. Here is a list of suspicious behaviour which could be red flags for scientists trying to circumvent normal checks and balances:

(1) Consistent use of ad hominem attacks toward those challenging their positions.

(2) Refusal to make data public. This has been going on in this area for some time.

(3) Refusal to engage in discussions of the actual science, on the
assumption that it is too complicated for others to understand.

(4) Challenging the credentials of those challenging the consensus position.

(5) Refusal to make computer code being used to analyze the data public. This has been particularly egregious here, and clear statements of the mathematics and statistics being employed would have allowed the conclusions to be challenged at a much earlier stage.

November 25, 2009

Zygi Wilf goes guerilla in war for new Vikings facility

Filed under: Economics, Football, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:26

Having been rebuffed by state legislators and blackmailed by the Metrodome administrators, Vikings owner Zygi Wilf takes his case on the road:

Making his most expansive comments yet on the need for a new stadium, Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf chastised politicians Tuesday for dodging an issue that “doesn’t serve their political purposes” and said they should not “run away” from a project many Minnesotans want to see happen.

Calling himself not only the owner but the “guardian” of the state’s most popular sports franchise, Wilf posed for pictures with fans clad in Vikings jerseys, autographed footballs and, in general, took on a public persona he has largely avoided as the team’s principal owner.

For all that the Vikings are the top sports franchise in the state, not everyone in Minnesota is a fan. The habit of other NFL cities — handing out hundreds of millions of tax dollars to provide stadia for “their” teams — has not been a popular topic even before the recession started. The Wilf family is quite rich, perhaps not rich enough to build a new stadium all on their own, but they certainly could be majority owners in a consortium to build one.

The state has more than enough other things to pay attention to, so politicians of all stripes are unwilling to provide public money for a private undertaking . . . and they’re quite right. They were not elected to favour certain groups or individuals and they certainly weren’t elected to force all Minnesotans to support the sports interests of only some Minnesotans.

I don’t really have a dog in this fight, as I’m a long distance Vikings fan and I’ve never set foot in the state. I’d be very sorry to see the team leave, and it might take me a while to adapt to the “Anaheim Vikings” or the “LA Vikings” or the “Toronto Vikings” (maybe less time for that one), but I’m sure I’d eventually cope with it. It’s not like other teams haven’t moved to new cities.

November 19, 2009

How could Sarah Palin become a viable presidential candidate?

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 08:46

Mike Potemra has a solid idea of how Palin could overcome her weakness in public perception . . . and it’s not even something she has to do:

According to this CNN poll, only 28 percent of Americans believe Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. For a person as well known to the public as Palin, that is an appallingly low number. For someone who is already so firmly fixed in the national consciousness — more: who has already reached a stratospheric level of celebrity — where is the room for growth in popularity? Who are the people who could possibly move from the 70-odd percent who declare Palin unqualified, into the 30-odd percent who believe she is qualified?

The answer is: people who become convinced that her current low public image is largely the result of unfair depictions of her in the media. [. . .]

If prominent media figures show an obsession with Palin that is so deep that they put the rest of the world on hold just because she wrote a book — then people might start suspecting that, yes, maybe there really is some animus in media elites, and maybe we should give Palin another chance. That’s when the 70-some percent starts to melt away, and a Palin presidency becomes conceivable. The second step, from “conceivable” to “likely,” is an even shorter step than the first.

Venezuela tops the survey

Filed under: Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:38

Unfortunately, it’s a survey on levels of corruption in the Americas. It’s not the sort of poll you want to feature in:

The latest Transparency International corruption survey found Venezuela the most corrupt nation in the Americas. Venezuela has also crippled press freedoms, putting increasing restrictions on independent media. President Hugo Chavez makes it clear that he wants to establish a socialist dictatorship for the region. Chavez can’t do this militarily, because he has crippled his armed forces by replacing most of the key officers with men selected for their loyalty to Chavez, rather than their military abilities. Chavez has ruined the economy with similar interference, especially in the national oil business, which represents the major export and largest source of government revenue. To further harm the economy, Chavez keeps closing the border with Colombia, disrupting trade that is vital to people on both sides of the border. The Venezuelans living along the border have become increasingly anti-Chavez because of all this economic damage, and lawlessness. This has just made Chavez more paranoid, and certain that those Venezuelans are secretly siding with Colombia.

In a time honored move, Chavez is trying to increase popular fear of neighboring Colombia by claiming that the U.S. is using Colombia as a base for a campaign to take over South America. The new treaty between the U.S. and Colombia, which allows American anti-drug air patrols to move their base from Ecuador to Colombia, is being used as evidence of an American plot. Ecuador, like Venezuela, has elected a leftist president who promises prosperity and reform. One of the first thing the new Ecuadoran government did was shut down U.S. anti-drug air patrols. As with Venezuela, the leftist policies have crippled the Ecuadoran economy, as well as press freedom. So both countries have been able to push the “an American invasion is coming” line. This has embarrassed other nations in the region, but they are reluctant to speak up. That’s because anti-American rhetoric is very popular, and few politicians are willing to oppose these myths.

November 18, 2009

Your opinion on Sarah Palin is a political litmus test

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 19:02

David Harsanyi provides the (political) science:

These days, where you fall on the crucial issue of Sarah Palin tells the rest of us all we need to know about your character. You’re either A) a scum-sucking, terror-loving elitist or B) a radical, tea bag-loving simpleton.

Yet believe it or not, one can (as I do) admire Palin’s charisma and roots, appreciate her dissent on the policy experiments brainy folks in Washington are cooking up, and, at the same time, believe she has no business running for president in 2012.

In fact, all you haters out there motivate me to root for her.

There’s nothing wrong, for instance, with The Associated Press’ assigning a crack team of investigative journalists to sift through every word of Palin’s book, Going Rogue, for inaccuracies. You only wish similarly methodical muckraking were applied to President Barack Obama’s two self-aggrandizing tomes — or even the health care or cap-and-trade bills, for that matter.

The widely read blogger and purveyor of all truth, Andrew Sullivan, was impelled to blog 17 times on the subject of Palin on the same day Americans learned that the Obama administration had awarded $6.7 billion in stimulus money to nonexistent congressional districts—which did not merit a single mention. To see what is in front of one’s nose demands a constant struggle, I guess.

I thought Palin was a daring choice for the VP slot . . . one of the few decisions I could applaud in the otherwise hide-your-eyes shambles that was the last Republican presidential campaign. I still think she’s not the right person to run against Obama in 2012. But the campaign would at least be fascinating to watch.

November 12, 2009

“If the cat wasn’t dead, I’d have killed it by now”

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Government, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 08:26

A real-life example of how even adults still play the game of “Telephone”:

Some 1,700 luminaries, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, were in the middle of dinner Tuesday night when smart phones throughout the room began to buzz with the news: “Lady Thatcher has passed away.”

Dinner chatter abruptly veered to expressions of shock and reminiscences of Margaret Thatcher, the 84-year-old former British prime minister, as news of her apparent passing spread like wildfire.

It eventually reached the ears of Harper, or someone close to him. Harper aide Dimitri Soudas, back in Ottawa, was dispatched to confirm the news and start preparing an official statement mourning the death of the Iron Lady, an icon to many in Harper’s Conservative party.

Of course, the rumour wasn’t true . . . the British Labour government hadn’t declared a week of celebrations . . .

November 11, 2009

Why would he do this?

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 18:05

My best guess is for two reasons: 1) He can. 2) It drives the opposition batshit insane:

The president who campaigned for a more “open government” and “full disclosure” will not unseal his medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records. He will not release his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records — he will not even release his Columbia College thesis. All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those State Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for the elite K-12 college prep school, Punahou School, he attended in Hawaii.

The whacky public image of the “Birthers” continues to do much damage to more rational criticism of Barack Obama’s administration. Whether there is “fire” to go along with all the breathlessly described “smoke”, it’s taking lots of attention away from the actual policies and actions of the current president, and tarring-by-association those who do criticize. That’s enough of a political win that Obama would be very foolish to do anything to calm them down by releasing these documents.

November 9, 2009

Beware of Ostalgia, both left and right

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Politics, Russia — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:16

Steve Chapman warns about the dangers of indulging in too much nostalgia one both sides of the divide:

Communism was the greatest catastrophe of the 20th century, and one of the greatest in human history. Twenty years ago, suddenly and improbably, it fell into its death throes.

The end began the night of Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall was opened, allowing East Germans to leave the prison that constituted their country. Throughout Eastern Europe, one Communist regime after another disintegrated. Within two years, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not only out of power but banned by law. A system soaked in the blood of millions was gone.

It was the most dramatic, life-affirming, and miraculous event of our time. And for those of us in the West, it is one from which we have yet to recover.

The Cold War was often grim and scary. For four decades, we had to maintain vast defenses against a numerically superior enemy that threatened the freedom of our allies and, by extension, ourselves. We lived with the daily reality that, with the push of a button in the Kremlin, we would all be dead in half an hour.

But the “long twilight struggle,” as John F. Kennedy called it, was also inspiring. It gave us a purpose greater than ourselves. In those days, most Americans understood it was our national duty to prevent the spread of the most malignant force on earth, lest it enslave us all.

That may sound absurd to anyone who has grown up since 1989. But there were serious people who feared the worst. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher thought that in the 1970s, the West was “slowly but surely losing.”

Our unequivocal victory brought joy, but it also created something else: a void in our lives. If upholding freedom and democracy against a global enemy was not our purpose, what was?

November 7, 2009

Watch for those dreaded ellipses

Filed under: Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 20:04

Patterico does some reconstructive surgery on Glenn Greenwald’s less-than-totally-honest practice of partial quoting:

Greenwald’s implication is clear: right-wing blogger Patterico shouldn’t have recommended Allahpundit’s coverage — and right-wing blogger Glenn Reynolds shouldn’t have linked Patterico’s recommendation of Allahpundit.

If only those right-wing bloggers had warned their readers to be skeptical and avoid jumping to conclusions . . .

But wait! What’s that little ellipsis in Greenwald’s quotation of my post? Why, I do believe that’s an indication that he left something out of my quote! Let’s just look at that whole quote to see what Greenwald chose to omit, shall we? I’ll put the part Greenwald omitted in bold type:

Whenever there is breaking news, it’s good to keep a few things in mind:

* Don’t jump to conclusions.

* Don’t be afraid to discuss relevant topics even if they seem politically incorrect.

* Always follow Allahpundit.

Hmmm. So Greenwald omits the part of my quote where I explicitly warn readers, as the very first thing I say, that they should not jump to conclusions in breaking news situations. And then Greenwald implies that my recommendation of Allahpundit was a poor one because Allahpundit jumped to invalid conclusions.

November 5, 2009

Rick Mercer on Canada’s Economic Action Plan

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Humour, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:40

October 30, 2009

Even CBS News has difficulty with the “jobs saved or created” claims

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:02

The formula for deciding how many jobs are created or saved doesn’t come close to passing the giggle test:

When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money “report” back on how many jobs were “saved or created,” they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee’s salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job “saved or created.” If he’s a new employee, that job was created. If he’s an existing employee, that job was saved.

For $1.

Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count “saved or created” jobs by simply stated: If any employee’s salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job “saved or created” by the spending.

And then report that number back to us.

Note that the White House’s rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were “saved or created.” To come to that conclusion, one would need a set of more rigorous rules — which excluded some jobs from the “saved or created” category, rather than attempting to include them all under that rubric.

The criteria for deciding are so unrealistic that it would be possible to claim that 787 billion jobs were saved or created . . . and it would be valid under the reporting formula.

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