Tag: politics

WND column

Occupy Washington and Wall Street

Seeing the so-called “conservative” media wax indignant about the Occupy Wall Street protesters is almost exactly like watching the mainstream media attack the Tea Party three years ago. In the process of purportedly criticizing the protesters they reveal both their ignorance and their ideological bias, and they completely manage to miss the point of the very justifiable protests.

It is true that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are incoherent and advocate inherently contradictory policies. For example, they wish to turn to Washington to limit the havoc that Wall Street has wreaked, and continues to wreak, on the American economy and the American people, little realizing that Washington has been knowingly enabling Wall Street’s capacity to do so from the start.

But it is equally true that the Tea Party activists are incoherent and advocate inherently contradictory policies.

US economy: the policy solution series

For two or three years now, people have been after me to provide a series of recommendations for how the USA can get out of its negative economic trajectory and return to genuine economic growth. I resisted this idea because I see absolutely no chance whatsoever that anyone who matters is going to listen to me or that creating a list of policy measures will serve to do anything except inspire a copious amount of criticism from those who don’t understand the issues at hand.

However, after three years of seeing the financial and political powers-that-be repeatedly make the same mistakes again and again, I figure that it can’t hurt to suggest a series of political policies that would not necessarily fix anything in the short term, but would permit the USA to survive the global economic depression intact as a functioning political and economic entity… not that this is necessarily desirable. Just to be clear, I have zero expectations of anyone of any significance paying attention to these policy prescriptions and I remain entirely confident that the politicians and bankers will continue to make things worse and the USA will cease to exist in its present form by 2033.

So, over the next few days I will begin by posting my diagnosis of the more problematic aspects of the situation, followed by my recommendations for addressing those problems.

The Republican debate

Stephen Green drunkblogs the Republican presidential debate, which is probably the only reason he managed to survive it:

5:24PM Cain can’t wait to “throw out the current tax code.” I’m with him on that, but the idea of giving the Feds a sales tax without taking away the income tax strikes me as dangerously naive thinking.

5:25PM Really, seriously, naive. Like, worse than my very first last call.

5:25PM To Romney: Europe is going to bring us down, huh?

5:26PM Romney: I’m not going to answer this question because it’s TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL that Europe’s economy could effect ours.

Punter.

5:26PM Romney: “I’m not going to call up Tim Geithner and ask him how the economy works.”

5:27PM Romney is defending TARP. Meh, he wasn’t exactly counting on the Tea Party vote.

5:28PM Is Romney’s complaint with the GM bailout that the funds came from TARP instead of from some other place, or do I need to drink less — or more?

5:30PM Friedman totally stole that joke from Dorothy Parker, who said that if all the girls attending the Yale prom were laid end to end, she wouldn’t be at all surprised.

5:30PM To Cain: Is Romney right?

5:30PM Cain: Yes. TARP was a good idea, badly implemented. You listening, Tea Party?

Hey, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyhow, this was my favorite part:

5:32PM To Paul: Would you get the government out of housing, or are you a dirty hypocrite?

5:32PM Paul: I would dig Keynes out of the grave just to hit him with the shovel.

It’s also worth noting that Paul went after Cain on his opposition to auditing the Federal Reserve. That is true greatness. America simply isn’t worthy of the man.

Abandoning the treacherous Tories

A former Conservative Party treasurer switches to UKIP:

Alexander Hesketh’s life has been synonymous with the Tory Party. He first canvassed for it at the 1959 election, aged nine. He was a minister in several departments under Mrs Thatcher, and John Major’s chief whip in the House of Lords for three years. He later became Conservative Treasurer.

So to announce that he is to join UKIP as a high-profile campaigner and fund-raiser is no ordinary political defection.

‘I’ve left for a number of reasons,’ he tells me in his West London home. A key factor is his strong belief that Europe has betrayed this country’s working people.

There is absolutely no excuse for the Tories betrayal of the British people. It is quite literal treachery.

Mailvox: they have eyes

But they really don’t want to see. LH writes about a response to yesterday’s column:

I forwarded your most recent article to a friend of mine who happens to be a supporter of Herman Cain. Rather than address issues listed in your article, his response went ad hominem.

That WND commentator…. likes to hear himself talk… what exactly did he say? I quit reading him long ago… he laid out a pretty good outline with no substantiation. He’s a Libertarian AND a Southern Baptist who claims Italian residency… a pot-smoking, tax-evading foreigner who plays church??? LOL… (I deduced that from his bio) 🙂

I do agree Cain needs to come more clearly on his involvement with the Fed… and I question his objection to a full audit, but he did not say he was against an audit… only that a “full” audit would be cost prohibitive and is not necessary… and I can agreee with that… whenever the government goes on a witch hunt, someone ends up being a scapegoat and it is not usually the one whose head should be offed. By setting parameters to the audit, the field of potential scapegoats is narrowed… I believe that is what he was alluding to…

I totally agree with Cain on whose fault it is if companies succedd or fail… in the context of “it’s not government’s place to decide…” I think the commentator got that one wrong in the end analysis.

keep watching…. The more popular Cain becomes, the more you’ll hear about his faults… Did we hear much of him before the Florida Straw Pole?. Funny how they ignore Santorum. I see a pattern.

The pattern is that if you can’t even win a Senate race, most people will conclude that your national appeal isn’t likely to be significant. There’s nothing funny about it. But it is funny how the Cain supporter cannot see that Cain is contradicting himself by claiming it’s not the government’s job to decide who wins and who loses while he is defending Wall Street and the banking bailouts.

By the way, here’s the final Facebook score from yesterday’s WND columns:

Day on Cain: 40 Likes
Cain on Cain: 823 Likes

Remember this the next time you are wondering how Wall Street and the big banks managed to get bailed out yet again by Republicans in the future. The lesson, as always, MPAI.

WND column

The Magic Negro, Part II: Republican edition

It is completely understandable why Republicans are increasingly enthusiastic about Herman Cain. First and foremost, he isn’t Mitt Romney. The Republican Party elite has been trying to force the mercurial Mormon down the throats of the party’s grass roots for two election cycles, but despite his elegant coiffure and vast money-raising capacity, the average Republican voter wants nothing to do with the man. They quite rightly regard him as less trustworthy and more slippery than Bill Clinton.

UPDATE: I note that Cain’s comments, as highlighted on the Drudge Report, are particularly ironic in light of the government bailouts of Wall Street and General Motors.

Republican presidential contender Herman Cain amplified his criticism Sunday of the growing Occupy Wall Street movement, calling the protesters “jealous’ Americans who “play the victim card” and want to “take somebody else’s” Cadillac.

A Libertarian on the Wall Street protests

From the Market Ticker:

You know what the “Occupy Wall Street” movement is?

It is all the things that were in the original Tea Party, but were steadily ignored as the TP became a Republican booster club.

The Tea Party is a contradiction. They want a balanced budget, but they also want the US military to intervene everywhere. Obamacare is a dirty word, but don’t dare touch social security or medicare. Individual rights are important too, but don’t push it too far. After all, republicans came up with today’s policies.

The most intriguing thing about these protests is the instinctive reaction of horror from the conservative media who still confuse corrupt big government corporatism for free market capitalism. If the Tea Party hadn’t already revealed itself to be little more than a joke, they’d be protesting side by side with the left-wing hipsters.

Both Republicans and Democrats are the problem. And that’s understandably something few Republicans or Democrats want to admit.

Herman Cain: banker’s whore or bankster?

It has been interesting to see how feeble a defense those who support Magic Negro Part II: The Republican have been able to make on his behalf. When faced with the fact that he was not only a corrupt Federal Reserve executive, but is still defending the Federal Reserve, the giant zombie banks, and Wall Street despite the economic depression they caused, their only – and I do mean ONLY – response is to cry raciss.

This demonstrates that Herman Cain has little more to offer as a presidential candidate but his race. But, in the immortal words of the French castle guard, the American people already got one, you see. The grand Republican dream of finally being able to accuse Democrats of racism is based on an erroneous assumption that Democrats care about such things; it would appear that Republicans have learned nothing from Clinton presidential scandal when it was learned that feminists didn’t mind being legitimately accused of supporting sexism.

Democrats are the modern equivalent of the medieval religious heretics who demonstrated their moral ascension beyond good and evil by their ability to indulge in the latter without harming their immortal soul. Thus, while others are tainted by the mere accusation of sexiss or raciss, actual acts of what would otherwise be considered sexism or racism on the part of a Democrat only proves his ideological saintliness.

As we’ve seen already with regards to Rick Perry, Cain is more than willing to cry raciss himself. But that’s almost irrelevant. The real question is whether Cain is a banker’s whore or a bankster proper. While his Federal Reserve history suggests the latter, his astonishing remarks about the central bank and apparent ignorance about the U.S. financial system strongly indicate that his role at the Federal Reserve was little more than affirmative action PR. So, I conclude that Cain is merely a banker’s whore like McCain and Obama rather than a genuine bankster like Bernanke.

Ever more 1984

The USA is moving closer to Soviet-style ritual denunciations. I don’t know about you, but I am rather looking forward to the emotional catharsis of a good Two-Minute Hate.

The House voted to set aside a privileged resolution aimed at condemning the stone on Perry’s ranch offered earlier in the day by an impassioned Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL).

Earlier in the day, Jackson read his resolution on the floor. It called on the House to:

“Condemn Texas Governor Rick Perry for using a secluded West Texas hunting camp as a place to host lawmakers, friends and supporters on hunting trips at a place known by the name painted in block letters across a large, flat rock standing upright at its gated entrance called ‘N*****head.'”

So, Congress has no problem with pharmaceutical corruption, handing two of every three Texas jobs to immigrants, and blowing millions, if not billions, on educating illegal aliens, but using land on which sits a politically incorrect rock, that’s legitimate national business demanding Congressional attention.