Sunday, July 12, 2009

Free kibbles

Cato is afraid of a second stimulus. Aren't we all. (Apparently not.) Essay reminds us that government spending hurts the economy and reducing government spending helps the economy. It's easy to understand. Money either works in the productive private sector or the non-productive government sector. We need more of the former and less of the latter.
"A major study of 18 large economies by Alberto Alesina of Harvard and three colleagues appeared in the 2002 American Economic Review. This paper, "Fiscal Policy, Profits and Investment" found that the surest way to make economies boom can be through deep cuts in government spending--the exact opposite of the "fiscal stimulus" snake oil."
It's amazing that people need studies to understand this. It's more amazing that liberals never understand it even with studies.

Cato offers an excellent analysis of Sarah Palin and the larger issue surrounding conservatives' reactionary response to attacks by liberal elites. I couldn't agree more. In an important companion piece, another Cato scholar focuses on the slanderous and gratuitous attacks Palin endured.

Cato examines Honduras's constitution to show that the so-called coup in Honduras was not a coup at all.

Cato's analysis on fiscal reality.

In an essay examining the alternative of doing nothing different to the financial bailout, Cato explains how government interference made the credit crisis worse:
"The moment Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got in front of the cameras last fall and announced that we were on the brink of catastrophe, Wall Street was bound to freeze, because bankers wanted to figure out how much money was available and how they could get some. Let's not realize any losses we don't have to realize, they figured, because Treasury's going to bail us out."
Every government interference in our economy makes things worse.

Reason says the conservatives like Sarah Palin is she's a babe. I don't want to discount the effect of her being a babe. It matters. After all, I'm the guy who says that the presidential candidate women would prefer to see in their underwear always wins (that's been true every election in my life), but I don't think conservatives would fall all over Britney Spears if she tried to become a Republican leader. There's more to it than that. Presented tongue in cheek, this article could have been entertaining. Instead it's just insulting to conservatives.

We're at war with al Qaeda. They're trying to kill us. We're trying to kill them. What's wrong with the CIA trying to assassinate their leaders? Why would Panetta kill that program? This has no relationship to previous intelligence abuses. Congress declared war on al Qaeda. The government is supposed to be killing them. If you don't like it, end the war. Don't restrict our ability to win it. I thought our government was doing everything possible to defeat the terrorists. If the CIA isn't trying to assassinate al Qaeda leaders, they are not doing everything possible.

Malou Innocent is right about pulling out of Afghanistan but she fails to mention the most important reason - we've succeeded. We invaded Afghanistan for the sole purpose of killing al Qaeda and denying them a safe haven there. Congress declared war against al Qaeda, not the Taliban and not Afghanistan. We've achieve that goal, and we have no lawful excuse to be in Afghanistan anymore. This is not the same situation as Iraq because al Qaeda moved into Iraq, and we ended up having to stay and overcome them because we're at war with them. The war in Iraq transformed into a was against al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is not fighting us in Afghanistan, so legally and for all the reasons Innocent mentioned, we have to pull out.

And I never understand this saving face argument. America should do what's right for Americans. I don't care what other people think, but in this case, I think they would think we're following the rule of law and leading by example in that respect, which is exactly what we're supposed to do.

Palin's PAC raised $700,000 in 6 months. She didn't shut it down either. Anybody who thinks she's getting out of politics is fooling themselves.

Obama nominates surgeon general. Any bets that she has tax problems?

US budget deficit for this year passes $1 trillion with three months left to go.

The Fed is under attack. About a century too late.

Russian President Medvedev proposes replacing the dollar as the world's currency with gold. Sounds good to me.

Mises scholar questions if China's economic growth is real.

1 comment:

  1. Yes it is amazing that people have so much trouble understanding that spending more money that you don't have is NOT the way to wealth.

    ReplyDelete