The Agony and the Arrogance

Our government doesn't know what it's doing, but it keeps doing it anyway...

Here’s a bit of wisdom from that infamous economy wrecker, Senator Chris Dodd (D-Wall Street), upon passage of the Banking “Reform” Bill:

"It will take the next economic crisis, as certainly it will come, to determine whether or not the provisions of this bill will actually provide this generation or the next generation of regulators with the tools necessary to minimize the effects of that crisis." (Fox News)

Reminds me of Pelosi saying we’d have to pass health care so we can see what’s in it.  So they create hundreds of thousands of pages of red tape and tens of thousand of new bureaucratic overlords, and they don’t even know if it will work or not.   It wouldn’t be so bad if they were they were funding this progressive alchemy with their own money, on their own progressive commune out of sight of decent society...

Question: If this fixes “Too Big To Fail,” why does the bill include a huge fund for bailing out or dismantling banks that become too big to fail?


A Surplus of Government Arrogance, A Deficit of Humility
Amity Shlaes, as usual, provides a searchlight of reason that cuts through the progressive fog:

Good policy is what might be calledhumble policy. It starts with admitting what we don’t know. Thatincludes who will lead growth in 2011 or 2012, where that personlives, and how he or she will get capital. 

Humble policy thengoes on to concentrate on trying to let our economy become thatbroad space that future businesses and industries still unknown,might find inviting. 

Her steps to humility start with cutting taxes and regulation, "including the new health-care mandate."  This puts money in the hands of employers and removes uncertainty that this bureaucratic behemoth has created.  It puts more money and personal decision-making back where it belongs:  to the individual.

The next humble step would be to set policy to benefit theoverall economy, not any specific group.

The third humble policy is demanding a serious commitmentfrom lawmakers to abandon fiscal stimulus.

The fourth humble move is up to voters. It is to reduceexpectations about entitlements. 

Progressives lack the humility to acknowledge what Thomas Sowell has learned through a lifetime of study.  Each human being has a fundamental right to order his or her own life:

Freedom is not simply the right of intellectuals to circulate their merchandise. It is, above all, the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their 'betters.'" -- Dr. Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions

A free and orderly marketplace arrives at better decisions than any government program ever has.

"Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to replace.

No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for those are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history." -- Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, p. 112

For more on the topic of Government Hubris, I highly recommend George Will’s excellent column, The High Price of American Hubris

Another day, another cheap political shot from our demagogic president

President Obama and Representative Pete Hoekstra both attended a ribbon cutting for a battery manufacturing plant in West Michigan last week

Holland, Michigan (CNN) - Is it bad form to attend a ribbon cutting celebration when you voted against paying for the project? Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Michigan, sat smiling in the front row today as President Obama marked the groundbreaking of a new stimulus-funded project in Holland, Michigan. (CNN)




Liberal toadie CNN reports the truth... Just not all of it. They omitted The President’s money quote:

But during his remarks, President Obama made an un-presidential remark towards Hoekstra, saying: 

"Some made the political calculation that it's better to obstruct than to lend a hand. Now that doesn't stop them from being at ribbon cuttings, but that's OK." (Hoekstra Press Release) (RCP - President’s Remarks)

Just what we’ve come to expect from the Community Agitator in Chief.  The new business is in Pete Hoekstra’s district, he’s running for governor, and he’s a politician, so of course he attended the groundbreaking.

Being against the stimulus is not being anti-jobs. In this case, it’s just the opposite.

Picking Winners and Losers

Here is part of Hoekstra’s response:

"Welcome to Holland, Michigan," Hoekstra said. "If you take a look around, you will see companies that were built by individuals and families. They have never received a government stimulus package. They built it with their own creativity and hard work.

Remember that for every dollar that we give to one business, there is whole group of other businesses that have provided the money to subsidize and invest in the business that the government has chosen." (Hoekstra Press Release)

Exactly. Michigan is a high tax, high regulation state, which is why their unemployment rate is well above even the dismal national average. It’s not the workers, it's the government and the failed liberal policies.

Playing Favorites, Spreadin' it Around

To get LG to build that plant in West Michigan, the federal government provided $151 million in stimulus money, and the state of Michigan exempted the business from much of it’s onerous tax laws and regulations. The total incentive package is worth over $300 million, which is a little under $1 million per job. That’s playing favorites with tax money extracted from taxpayers, and perversely, businesses that must compete with this government-favored company. (wwmt.com)

Hoekstra has a better plan:

"Wouldn't it be more appropriate if we gave a better tax climate to all of our businesses all across the country, all across West Michigan, so that we can see and realize the creativity of all Americans? Not just the ones that are chosen by government," Hoekstra continued.

The very fact that government must suspend their rules and regulations in order to create jobs is itself an indictment of its policies. If we had a good jobs environment, with the right balance of rules and regulation in place, the government would not need to provide incentives.

Bank Reform: The Wall Street Casino is Still Open

...  And taxpayers continue to foot the bill

They watered down the Volker Rule and came up with some really creepy language that could be right out of a Glenn Beck Parody...


May a Council of Regulators Infest Your Bank Vault!

when banks grow “too big to fail,” a 10-person “council of regulators,” with the Treasury secretary at the helm, can opt to crack down on them (Daily Beast - Wall Street Outsmarts Congress)

Let the Gambling Continue!

The big fight centered around the Volcker Rule, named for Obama’s lanky Wall Street adviser, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who pushed for a complete ban on proprietary, or “prop,” trading. 

This is the money a bank gambles for its own gain, often using customers’ deposits as the seed bet, borrowing wantonly above that to keep things extra interesting.

The basic math encourages crazy risk: Hit it big, and bankers get a monster bonus; crap out, and the taxpayers sit on the hook for a bailout.

Yes, Our Scott Brown...

A strict Volcker Rule would have fixed that, and Wall Street shuddered accordingly. But after new Republican Senator Scott Brown extracted a watered-down version—banks will be allowed to risk 3 percent of their capital via prop trading and own up to 3 percent of hedge funds and private equity funds—Wall Street did what it’s best at: creating complicated solutions to exploit loopholes.

So Let The (Taxpayer Funded) Games Continue!

First, most banks are already content to bet tens of billions, given the leverage available, while sitting under the 3 percent threshold. For them, it’s business as usual.

Similarly, even once banks rub up against the 3 percent, they’ve already concocted another evasive maneuver: Keep the game, change the name. Specifically, Dodd-Frank allows banks to take the other side of a bet that a customer wants to make. “You could say, ‘Hey, I’m doing this for my clients,’” one sales trader explained to me. Voila! Prop trading, under a new guise.

Pay for Play Government 
All Congress had to do was remove the safety nets and tell the gamblers disguised as bankers that if they fail they are on their own.  Instead, the shell game continues, as Wall Street money flows into the pockets of Democrat politicians.

This is a bipartisan raping of the US taxpayer
More insidious, is it a congressional bribery scheme:   They craft complex laws no one understands, then extract money from those harmed by the law in exchange for advantageous carve-outs and exemptions.

The right points to government malfeasance, the left points to crony capitalists.  If everyone could see that both are true, the taxpayer-funded big government-big business orgy would be over.

Why Progressivism?

You can’t argue against it if you don’t understand it...

Michael Barone, America’ preeminent political scholar, explores the roots of progressivism, that un-American and statist doctrine spawned at the dawn of the 20th century.

Progressivism’s Premise

The Progressives explicitly repudiated the Founders’ vision of limited government. They argued that government needed to redistribute property, to take money from one group of citizens to help others, and to regulate economic activity in ways previously considered unconstitutional.

More importantly, says Barone, “They feared revolution.”  Even “good” countries experienced such upheavals back in the late 1800’s.  People of the early 1900’s looked up to central-planning strong men as the wave of the future, if not out of fear of central-planning communists.  You see, fascism, communism and progressivism were not opposing ideologies, they were competing for the support of the same group of people!

The teeming hordes of city dwellers who manned America’s factories became a particular concern of progressives:

Most city residents rented rather than owned their homes; they cashed their paychecks for cash rather than have bank accounts; they depended on charity if they became disabled or widowed.

It was the America of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie—a very hard America (as I used the term in my 2004 book, Hard America, Soft America), an America with plenty of competition and accountability, but which could be very unforgiving of mistakes and misfortunes. Millions made their way upwards, but most never accumulated significant wealth.

Progressivism was sprung from a sense of condescending paternal benevolence, urged along by a will to order.

The Progressives and their progeny, the New Dealers—whether acting out of benevolence, hunger for power, or fear—were paternalistic; but they were also precautionary.

Give the masses work relief, Social Security, deposit insurance, a floor on wages and prices, they thought, and the masses will not revolt or be attracted to the totalitarian faiths advancing in the Old World—the Communism that many intellectuals championed, the fascism that Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote was “the wave of the future.”

The irony here, is that the US government, insulating itself from socialist totalitarian ideologies, itself became more totalitarian and more socialist.

The Progressives argued that economic freedoms were unimportant because ordinary people, lacking property, didn’t really have much economic freedom anyway.

As such, property rights must be subordinated to human rights. It was better to guarantee people education, healthcare, food, housing—the domestic programs that Franklin Roosevelt advanced as victory in World War II neared in 1944 and 1945

It’s always for the good of society, security, equality, social justice...  As The State increases, the individual decreases. 

It is helpful to recall that Benjamin Franklin quote progressives were so fond of spouting in the days after 9/11:

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -- Benjamin Franklin

Weekend Wrap-Up

I'm spending more time with my kids now, so that means shorter posts.  Especially on Saturdays.  I need to teach them to think and shoot.  Happy reading!


Climategate “Investigations”

Of course, the Climategate "investigations" in England were a joke.  They were bought and paid for by East Anglia University, which makes millions off of keeping this scam alive.



How Big Government Botched the Oil Spill
How do I hate big government?  Let me count the ways.  This is the most complete and concise catalog of government incompetence concerning the Gulf oil spill.  Read it and ponder that this is the government that is taking over health care and banking...



Stupak and the “Pro-Life Democrat” Myth
Bart Stupak:  Bought and paid for by Obama and the Pelosicrats. We now have US Government funded abortions for the first time. Thanks Bart! You done The Knights of Columbus proud!

Have a happy weekend!

Good News from Afghanistan!

Only two weeks on the ground and General Petraeus is already making things happen! 

KABUL, Afghanistan — After intensive discussions with NATO military commanders, the Afghan government on Wednesday approved a program to establish local defense forces around the country, with the potential to help remote areas thwart attacks by Taliban insurgents. 

The NATO-backed program, which will be supervised by the Interior Ministry, will pay salaries to the members of these new forces, an inducement that could generate widespread recruitment. (NY Times)

Afghanistan Awakening

General Petraeus is adapting the successful Iraqi Awakening concept and applying it to Afghanistan.  Karzai is suspicious (probably because he and his cronies can't make money off of it), but NATO is pressing on.

The program is similar in some respects to the Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq — although it is not expected to include insurgents who have switched sides. 

I'm waiting to hear what Army veteran and military commentator Ralph Peters has to say.  He is one of my go-to experts on this kind of stuff.  It falls in line with what Peters has suggested to try and salvage some kind of win from this sagging effort.

Nationalization could take decades, making a regional approach the way to go.  You can call it bribery, you can call it making friends with "the enemy," but it worked in Iraq, and such an approach fits the cultural landscape.

Incentivizing local chieftains and their tribes to reject the Al Qaida foreigners is a good idea and it could work.  

Gay Rights, States Rights

The Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is in trouble. A federal judge ruled last week that Massachusetts law trump federal law in this case

“This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status,” Judge Tauro wrote in the case brought by Ms. Coakley. “The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state.” (NY Times)

I agree. The US Constitution is silent concerning marriage. It has always been a state issue. Besides being a victory for gay rights, it is also a victory for states rights.

Religious conservatives are not happy
Chris Gacek, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a leading conservative group, said he was disappointed by the decision.

“The idea that a court can say that this definition of marriage that’s been around forever is irrational is mind-boggling,” Mr. Gacek said. “It’s a bad decision.”

I agree with Gacek, but he is on very thin constitutional ice. 

In a related article, The Times goes a gathering opinions from Tea Party Americans. They come away disappointed. Everyone they talked to said hooray for states rights while expressing no support for gay marriage. Nuance from neanderthals... Who’d a thunk it?

Here are the issues going forward:
Now that the right of a state to set it’s own marriage laws has been reaffirmed, will a good conservative state like Utah be allowed to ban gay marriage? No way. A very good case can be made that this is a civil rights issue.

Even if a state were to fend off such lawsuits, Article 4 Section 1 of the US Constitution would force one state to accept another state’s marriage license.

Could the government eventually compel a church to perform gay marriages? Could a church be prosecuted via US Code or face a discrimination lawsuit for refusing?


A Semantic Criticism 
Many believe the term “marriage” should be reserved for traditional man-woman relationships, since that is the historical meaning of the word. I would like to see the states get out of “marriage” altogether and instead focus on administering civil partnerships and sorting out the rights therein.  Leave marriage to churches and synagogues.

Elton John agrees:

“What is wrong with Proposition 8 is that they went for marriage. Marriage is going to put a lot of people off, the word marriage… I don’t want to be married. I’m very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership… You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.” -- Elton John  (Big Hollywood)