Category Archives: Conservatism

Pundit, Heal Thyself!

Conservatism, Economy, Inflation, Journalism, libertarianism, Media

Today was the day MSNBC located the word debt in the dictionary. Michael Smerconish—who calls himself conservative, but isn’t—was asked by Obamahead David Schuster whether our foreign debtors might call it quits and stop funding the orgy.

Smerconish looked surprised, and said he had no idea, which was honest enough. Then he quickly padded the ego by adding: Let nobody claim he has an idea, or that he foresaw the current crisis.

When you shut serious libertarians (Neal Boortz and Treason Magazine are precluded, naturally) out of the discourse, you are also able to pretend they don’t exist or have not been warning of a meltdown. (And then steal their insights to present to mainstream when the time is ripe.)

This column was warning in 2003, if not earlier, of the consequences of endless debt and the dangers of hyperinflation. An example is “Bring ‘Em Home, Mr. Bush”:

“This means we’re into Keynesian deficit spending—the government is borrowing and inflating the money supply to fund its profligacy, a practice that will accelerate the depreciation of the dollar, and may even lead to the horror of hyperinflation.”

At the very least, is the ignorant Smerconish not aware of one congressman who ran for president, Ron Paul, and who’s been speaking about the day of reckoning for decades?

Investors may be aware of Peter Schiff’s spot-on predictions. They too go back years.

Smerconish is bright in that gabby, establishment-friendly way, so “speechless” did not look good on him.

Here’s a suggestion: in the future, if MSNBC brings up the topic of debt financing and the future of the dollar, suggest that the Us beg for debt forgiveness. Like a Third World country.

Seriously, when will America pull the plug on these pathetic pundits and seek out those of us who have a record of accurate predictions on the defining issues of the day?

To plagiarize myself:

“Suppose your doctor misdiagnoses your condition – he tells you that six months hence you’ll be stone-cold dead, pushing up the daisies. As it turns out, however, you did not have leukemia after all, but were only suffering from Lyme disease. Would you not consider switching practitioners?

Say your stockbroker’s picks leave you with a portfolio more volatile than Vesuvius and an eviscerated bank account. Short of buying shares in a Baghdad bed and breakfast, he did everything wrong. Would you still entrust him with your money?

Imagine you’re a fisherman. Your local weatherman predicts calm, but you lose your boat in treacherous seas. (Thankfully your life is spared.) Then he forecasts a storm, but the sea is as calm as glass, and you miss out on the biggest catch ever. How long before you stop trusting his “expertise”?

These analogies came to mind as I listened to a different sort of failed “expert,” for whom public goodwill runs eternal.”

Economic Animism

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Economy, Neoconservatism, Political Economy, Propaganda, Republicans

Republikeynesians, especially, have been demanding that in his first address to a joint session of Congress, Obama “talk up” the economy. “What Obama Should Do,” blared the typical headline in the neoconservative National Review. And the answers: “Be positive, if prudent,” instructed Bill O’Reilly. “Restore economic confidence,” advised Conrad Black, a conservative who also believes that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the champion of freedom. (Black, who, incongruously, combines a call for serious central planning with a condemnation of it, has, seemingly, learned nothing from falling prey to the same predators.)

This tired battle cry just goes to show the depths of this lot’s economic “thinking.”

Most Republicans have taken up economist John Maynard Keynes’ kooky concept of “animal spirits.” This was Keynes’ condescending reference to consumer confidence. Keynes believed that the fickle consumer’s biorhythms controlled the economy (I kid you not). Which explains why confused Republicans, like Democrats, keep kibitzing about “a crisis in consumer confidence.”

The implication being that “confidence” will galvanize the jobless and the penniless to spend.

I sincerely hope not.

By the way, the Voodoo Child has obliged. This is the first line in Obama’s pie-in-the-sky speech:

“[T]onight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

Does Obama Want To Lynch Rush Limbaugh?

BAB's A List, Barack Obama, Conservatism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Socialism

Our friend, economist George Reisman, is on a roll. Read about George in the previous post, “The Myth That Laissez Faire Is Responsible For Our Financial Crisis.”

Does Obama Want to Lynch Rush Limbaugh?
By George Reisman*

My answer to the question “Does Obama Want to Lynch Rush Limbaugh?” is, no. He and the rest of the Left just want to drive Rush Limbaugh off the air.

Obama has already used the prestige of his office to attack Limbaugh by name. According to The New York Post and Fox News of January 23:

WASHINGTON–President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

To get the silence-Limbaugh campaign going, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee yesterday (January 27) launched a petition drive urging people to “EXPRESS [THEIR] OUTRAGE ABOUT RUSH’S COMMENTS” that stated his hope that Obama’s socialistic plans will fail. This followed a warm-up led by assorted news anchors, pundits, and celebrities denouncing Limbaugh in the media.

Here’s is what Limbaugh actually said, back on January 16, and which led to the orchestrated campaign now being waged against him:

“I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.

If I wanted Obama to succeed, I’d be happy the Republicans have laid [sic] down. And I would be encouraging Republicans to lay [sic] down and support him. Look, what he’s talking about is the absorption of as much of the private sector by the US government as possible, from the banking business, to the mortgage industry, the automobile business, to health care. I do not want the government in charge of all of these things. I don’t want this to work..… Why is it any different, what’s new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here. Why do I want more of it? I don’t care what the Drive-By story is. I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: ‘Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails.’ Somebody’s gotta say it.”

Actually, as Limbaugh well knows, it’s really not necessary to hope for the failure of Obama’s socialistic policies themselves. If they are adopted, they will fail by virtue of their own nature. But it is perfectly reasonable to hope for the failure of Obama’s efforts to get his policies enacted and to hope that to the extent they are enacted their failure is recognized. This is what Limbaugh clearly meant.

The Left cannot tolerate criticism or dissent. A large proportion of its members are actually Stalinist in their mentality. (This is a far larger proportion than the members of the right who are in favor of the diametric opposite of Stalinism, namely, laissez-faire capitalism, which the Left attacks more and more stridently.)

Serious Leftists, i.e., those who want to establish and maintain actual government ownership or control over the economic system, are all implicitly totalitarians. On the one hand, they want to take total control over people’s lives under the pretext of improving and enriching their lives. But their policies are so bad, cause so much destruction and human suffering, that the potential is created for an explosive outburst of hatred and vengeance against them once the public draws the logically inescapable conclusion that it is they and their policies who are responsible. To stay in power and keep socialism in existence, they have to prevent this from happening by crushing all possibility of dissent.

Limbaugh is a major thorn in the side of the Left. They need to remove him, because his criticism serves to slow their advance and might even help to stop them in their tracks.

That’s why I’m for Limbaugh and I too hope Obama fails at every turn in his efforts to expand the powers of government.

*Copyright © 2009, by George Reisman. George Reisman, Ph.D. is the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute. His web site is www.capitalism.net. A pdf replica of his book can be downloaded to the reader’s hard drive simply by clicking on the book’s title Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics and then saving the file when it appears on the screen.

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Posted at George Reisman’s Blog on Economics, Politics, Society, and Culture at 1/28/2009 02:11:00 PM