Month: February 2009

Now they’re worried (by Russell Roberts):

An amusing moment in the SOTU address occurred when Obama said:

“There is, of course, another responsibility we have to our children. And that is the responsibility to ensure that we do not pass on to them a debt they cannot pay. “

The Republicans roared their agreement. It was the only real point in the speech when they showed genuine emotion. But then Obama continued:

“With the deficit we inherited…”

And the Democrats roared back, mocking the Republicans. (And I think there was an ad lib in the middle where Obama mentioned that this was an issue where there was bipartisan agreement.)

The Republicans deserve to be mocked. All of a sudden they’re worried about big government and deficits. But it is ironic for the Democrats to do the mocking. They haven’t exactly been pushing for balanced budgets or reduced spending over the last eight years.

Obama’s Shocking Speech:

Voters respond enthusiastically to determined leadership at the moment of crisis. But laws made in a crisis atmosphere, from the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to Nixon’s wage and price controls to the TARP legislation, usually turn out badly. Democrats want to use this crisis to ram through government takeovers that they couldn’t achieve in any other period. We should slow down, take a deep breath, and carefully consider whether we want a clumsy, always-behind-the-times bureaucracy to take charge of our health, our access to energy, and our educational future.

A Way to Protest Obama’s Economic Plan:

I’m watching the President’s address to Congress. Or I was anyway. I’ve had enough. But after listening to him butcher economics for the last half hour, I have an idea for a little mass action that will both protest the ignorance of his plan and educate those who need it most in the process: Readers of this blog should email the office of their elected officials, and enclose the following link:

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

That link is to “The Seen and the Unseen” by Bastiat. It is quite clear after listening to Obama’s talk tonight that he, and those who applauded him wildly, have no clue as to this fundamental point in political economy. Not once in all of his talk of what government would do did he ever even come close to acknowledging that what government spends on the one hand must be taken from the private spending stream on the other. In fact, at one point he touted his “transparency” plan by saying that it would enable “taxpayers to see how government money is being spent helping other taxpayers.” Maybe so, but he glosses over the fact that the money being spent came from those same taxpayers and would have been spent on other things, without the waste of the transfer, were it not for government’s intervention. Robbing Peter to “help” Paul only damages both in the process, and certainly stimulates no economic activity.

So let’s start our own little form of mass action and protest. Take a few minutes and email your elected officials (and members of the media!) a copy of Bastiat’s essay. And then you should spread the word to your friends and family and ask them to do the same. Feel free to enclose a note to the politicians and talking heads explaining why they should read it. It can’t hurt and it can only help. And wouldn’t it be great if this spread and members of Congress and the media (and the White House!) got deluged with dozens or hundreds or thousands of emailed copies of Bastiat? At the very least, no one can say we did nothing.

Misplaced Priorities, by Arnold Kling:

I think that Bernanke, far from being the right man in the right place at the right time, turned out to be the opposite. Last year was not 1930, in which bank runs were threatening otherwise sound institutions. It was 2008, in which thinly-capitalized institutions that had sold securities that behave like put options or insurance no longer met regulatory standards for solvency. They should be shut down in an orderly way as soon as possible, not kept afloat.