Category Archives: Economy

The Worst of Times

Bush, Economy, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Jihad, Liberty, Military, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Terrorism, War

National Journal has had an aha Moment: “The 10 years since the terrorism attacks of 9/11 rank among America’s most troubled,” concludes the Journal’s Ronald Brownstein:

[George W. Bush’s] “mismanaged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq sapped U.S. strength and imposed costs vastly exceeding their benefits. Overstretched and in the red, America ends the decade weaker on many international dimensions than when it began… At home,… the median income is now lower than in 2001 and the number of Americans in poverty nearly one-third higher. Most incredibly, fewer Americans are working today than in September 2001—a decadelong record of decline matched since 1900 only during the 1930s. Faith in all public and private leadership is flickering.”

No doubt, it began with Bush, who was bad to the bone.

Leech-In-Chief Robs Job Market

Barack Obama, Business, Debt, Economy, Free Markets, Labor, Political Economy, Regulation

Robbing Peter to pay Paul impoverishes. Put differently: this month, the proverbial Peter was unable to create prosperity that would have redounded to all Americans. The leech-in-chief and the political parasites surrounding him have put in place policies which guarantee that the U.S. job market flat-lines, as it did this month. “The worst performance since last September, the Labor Department said.”

Heartbreaking are the images of “job seekers waiting to enter job fairs”—which in themselves often appear to be feel-good affairs organized by ruthless politicians eager to be perceived as doing something.

In the interim, when he’s not preparing to wow us with his words—a disappearing act would be more welcome—President Obama is hiring. He has just nominated a new bloodsucker to advise him on economics. Does Alan Krueger truly believe that fixing the price of labor via minimum wage laws is not such a bad idea? Apparently so.

Considered a form of price control, minimum wage laws create poverty by creating unemployment among the poor and unskilled. “Fixing the price of labor above the market rate or the productivity of the employee as the minimum wage does causes surpluses of labor. The jobs would exist had government not legislated them out of the reach of those who need them.”

They are the individuals in the images.

BHO is also poised to do some more taxing, printing, and borrowing.

A glimmer of good news can be gleaned from the WSJ report: “Cuts in the public sector entirely offset the private sector’s gain of 17,000 jobs.”

If only the poor people standing in line at these job fairs—often only to meet and greet a greasy politician—understood that every little slash at the “Oink Sector” helps to seed a job in the real sector.

‘I.O.U.S.A’ Forever After

Barack Obama, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Political Economy

I am unable to locate the Bloomberg TV segment in which Robert Auerbach, Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, disputed the fiscal multiplier effect with reference to research he had undertaken with Milton Friedman. Crumbs, for sure …

Milton Friedman was no Austrian economist. Neither is Auerbach—but at least he has admitted that after he “transferred from the teachings of Abba Lerner [some frightful Neo-Keynesian] to the teachings of Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago,” he “became convinced that Abba had made a terrible mistake. ‘Heavy reliance’ on running the printing press to finance government spending is not immune to serious consequences. There are substantial immediate effects as well as expectations of inflation and higher interest rates that may well appear over time.”

[SNIP]

The state of political economy in the US being what it is, I can safely copy and paste from past articles a response to current, repeat-offender policies. The latest crazed impetus from Zero and his advisers is a “new” “jobs agenda.” “‘I.O.U.S.A'” was written in 2008 on the occasion of BHO’s first fake money infusion:

“Fresh off the printing press, the trillions in new spending Obama is planning will only make matters worse. Understand, government can’t create wealth; it only consumes it, or moves it about. Not even Magic Man Obama can make sustainable jobs materialize by borrowing and counterfeiting. Only the private sector can create sustainable jobs—-sustainable because driven by consumer preferences, as opposed to bureaucratic whim. The more taxing, printing, and borrowing the government does, in the vain name of job creation, the less capital will the private sector have with which to create long-lasting employment.”

UPDATED: Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy

America, Colonialism, Conspiracy, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government, Inflation, Middle East

Was Moammar Gadhafi promoting a gold-driven monetary revolution? Did he, somehow, contravene the American creed of cruising on credit? Is it entirely within the realm of conspiracy to posit that the war against Libya had at least something to do with taking down “a pesky, persistent Arab gold bug?”

The following is from my new column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” now on WND.COM:

“In 2009—in his capacity as head of the African Union—Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi had proposed that the economically crippled continent adopt the Gold Dinar. I do not know for sure if Colonel Gadhafi persevered in the plan he had hatched to ditch the dollar and adopt a ‘Gold Dinar.’ … Had a gold revolution engulfed oil-rich African and Persian-Gulf states this would have spelt trouble for the debt-strapped West.

If only symbolically, a gold revolution across Arabia and Africa would have outweighed by far the significance of a democratic revolution. …

A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers and their political and media power-brokers. The former surreptitiously print away the fruits of the people’s labor; the latter scramble their brains so that they don’t know they are being robbed blind.” …

The complete column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” is now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

UPDATE (Aug. 28): The late Elizabeth Wright had an interesting tidbit about the twisted relationship between Muammar Gaddafi and “the foolish Europeans”:

When Libya’s cynical Muammar Gaddafi laughs at the foolish Europeans, who have encouraged the emigration of millions of Third World aliens, and offers Europe’s leaders a financial deal to keep more of the mob out of that continent, are American conservatives taking notes?
As literally tens of thousands of African refugees in boats try to reach Italy, the Libyan navy has been instrumental in keeping them out, thanks to an agreement with the Italian government. “We don’t know,” the bemused Gaddafi is quoted as saying, “if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions.” And then he comes right out and says it: Your continent is turning into Africa.