NYT's Omniscience and Touching Faith In Government

A stubborn standoff is playing out this week between a nearly bankrupt Greece and the wrongheaded European partners it needs to pay its bills. The outcome is, sadly, foreordained. Greece will have to give Europe all or most of what it wants. It cannot survive without Europe’s money, even if it chokes on Europe’s conditions. By now, Europe’s leaders should know this approach will not work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/09/opinion/greek-tragedy.html?_r=3&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

Translation - even though no one else can effectively predict the future, we can, and are so proud of our ability that we don't mind telling Europe's elected leaders how wrong headed we think they are.

Greece has contributed mightily to its problems. For years, the government falsified deficit numbers it provided to Europe, giving it cover to amass unpayable debts. A new government elected in 2009 blew the whistle, accepted a European Union bailout deal and then failed to deliver on market-opening reforms. With austerity measures shrinking the economy and tax receipts and European Union blunders raising interest rates, it also missed deficit targets. Europe’s frustration is understandable.
Translation:  If we didn't believe so mightily in the power of government to do good, we'd say you shouldn't trust governments, which make decisions based on political viability, to run stuff.  But we do.  So, instead of saying that you can't trust governments to run stuff, we'll point our finger again at the EU for running stuff so badly.  Because you see, it's not so much that we can't trust governments to run stuff, it's just that we've had such bad elected leadership for the last few years.  Indeed, we just need better politicians, who are as smart as we are, and all would be well.

In a democracy, majorities can be mobilized against special interests if they can see the economic benefit to their own lives.
Translation:  It's pretty easy to get people to vote for you if you can confuse them into thinking you'll give them something that used to belong to someone else, while allowing them to believe they are justified in getting something that used to belong to someone else.  A cynic would say that's why democracy is such an ignoble form of government.  We just think some groups are more equal than others, and that naturally plays out in way the political class divies out the spoils of capitalism.  Hey, there's no way to make people equal, so naturaly those more equal than others will find a way to get ahead via the coercive power that comes along with politcal connectedness.  It goes without saying that such a natural consequence of an all knowing and all caring government is hardly as wretched as people who get ahead by making profits! (And we ask you, is there anything more soulless than profits?) 

So that's what the NYT meant, as far as I can tell.  As for me, I just feel bad for the poor fools who gave their liberty to politicians thinking it meant they could sit back and soak up the benefits of political largesse, and now realize they can neither care for themselves or their children and have little prospect of changing things in the near future.  I admit that I can't predict the future of the economy, but a not so bold prediction I would be willing to venture is that the Eurozone is not about to elect a bunch of smarter politicians who will do a better job than the present bunch is doing.

Interesting That They Call This The "Right"

Let no one deny that swimming eternally amid the rightward waves of American politics is an ever-present school of fish that would solve Washington's spending problem mainly with cuts in the defense budget (ending foreign "entanglements"), set a place at the nuclear table for Iran ("Who are they going to bomb?"), cut Israel loose, cut the Federal Reserve loose, and legalize many currently controlled substances.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204720204577126711408360798.html

It's neither right nor left - it is liberty! 

Euro Lesson

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, investors have focused on credit risk and rewarded Germany with low interest rates for its perceived frugality. But now markets will focus on currency risk. Inflation will accelerate and the euro may break up in a way that calls into question all euro-denominated obligations. This is the beginning of the end for the euro zone.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/the-euro-area-is-coming-to-an-end-peter-boone-and-simon-johnson.html

The premise of socialism is that smart people ("the elite" or the connected or the educated or the studious or whatever you might term those who hubristically think they can direct others and their assets to the benefit of all) could use the state's monopoly power on coercion solve problems.  The idea that something could be had for nothing - "we can reduce the pain and suffering of live just by doing some smart stuff by force that would never happen with coperation."

It seems that after a long experiment with that approach, there are two possible explanations for the results as statist nations face the same problem the world over (and in US state governments, and city governments, as well); the people who get elected either are not that smart except in terms of how to get elected; or, no one is smart enough to use coercion to direct that activities of others to the benefit of all. \

In my humble as ever view, which of these two options is correct does not matter, as either one points to a common solution; stop pretending (or dreaming) that humans with a lot of power are a help vice a hindrance.

How much more evidence would anyone need to know that coercion is not a viable alternative to cooperation?  Who could really think that what we're seeing now is better than cooperation?  Why do we insist that cooperative arrangements cannot better deal with the problem caused by human existence - genetic and environmental inequality leading to unequal outcomes - which means that some will do better than others?

Like the Greeks, we must accept that it is foolish for men to attempt the work of the gods, and especially so if we attempt to do god's work with government.

It's Not About the People, Stupid

This is one of the funniest lines I've ever read (funny like "REALLY?!" funny, no "funny ha ha), and to think the authors may have actually meant it:
Given her strong public support, she has the ability to step above partisan politics, reach out to Republicans, change the dialogue, and break the gridlock in Washington.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203611404577041950781477944.html

This is the sort of delusional thinking that results from a belief that government is an effective tool to "get things done."  This is the backwash of being one who believes that government can lead economies, and put just the right leverage on just the right point to "get the economy back on track."  Better to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which, at least we know as part of that concept, is not real.

President Bill Clinton reached a historic agreement with the Republicans in 1997 that led to a balanced budget.
Another laugher.  Did these people study logic at all, ever?  But of course, if you want to sustain an illusion, you must find compelling narratives to help yourself believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc

Bill and the GOP agreed on something, and then that caused things to go well, it caused the economy to boom, it caused therefore in increase in government revenues, and therefore - Bill and his agreement "caused" the "surplus." 

Well, totally aside from the question of whether it may possibly not be an abominable abuse of power to ever have a government surplus, and totally aside from whether the "surplus" was real or an accounting gimic and a no-lose political talking point - by what rational basis could one assess causality?  Out of the gozillion moving parts of an international economy, the best that could be said is that, as economic growth occurred while a man named Bill was President, he didn't do anything to fully interfere with said growth. 

Mrs. Clinton does not show the slightest inclination towards bipartisanism, nor would it necessarily be good if she did.  Both concepts - that she could provide leadership appealing to both major parties, and that such leadership would produce good outcomes - are absurd. 

The entire structure of the current political system is based a result of an unrelenting, winner take all pursuit of power.  The players of this game will say whatever it takes in order to win and retain office.  It could be no other way.  Those few purists who really want to have power to make things better are eliminated when they refuse to subject their principles to the over-riding imperative of the political wind.

You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Matrix
These authors - they need to take the red pill.

Our political future has nothing to do with who the next president is and it does not depend upon "bipartisanship" (it is more likely that gridlock will help than bipartisanship - with gridlock, they can't accelerate the pace at which things grow worse).  It is dependent upon whether some process restores the federal government to its rightful size and scope, whilst we are relieved of the burden of believing that our fate is in the hands of politicans. 

No, I don't know how that can happen, aside from the obvious which is that it would only happen if politicians believe they must re-restrain the federal government or lose their jobs and influence.  Yes, I'm essentially asking for a political red pill, have you seen any?

Calling All Language Police

America still has so much work to do regarding race and racism and “post-racial” is only making that work harder to do. That’s why “post-racial” and its cohorts must be stopped posthaste.
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/no-such-place-as-post-racial-america/?ref=opinion#

The author presents a long diatribe in which his chief complaint is the term "post-racial" which he describes as an intellectual loch ness monster - a term I quite like, by the way.

I don't know if I disagree.  But let me add to the list of intellectual Nessie's (IN) the phrase "America has much work to do."  What work will the entity described as "America" do?  Who is responsible to make that work happen, describe that work, and define its successful outcome?  Indeed, who could do such work on behalf of that collection of individuals generally known as "Americans"?  A less sensible phrase may never have been spoken - unless of course, we consider the Kennedy pablum about asking "what you can do for your country."

I would add to the list of INs the term "racism".  Why?  Because the terms no longer means what it means.  Here's the Wiki definition:  "Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination."  Let me ask you, dear reader, how many people you know who believe there are inherently different traits in human racial groups as regards qualities other than their physical genetic template (body shape, color or type of hair)?  Do you know someone who believes there is a group of people so remarkable inferior that using the coercive force of the state against them is acceptable? 

If you are like me, I know only one or two people who would articulate such a view.  But more importantly - who cares?  In my observation, belief in the inferiority of an ethnic group hurts only the believer, and not those whom the believer views perjoratively.  Being a racist makes a person, in my view, unlikable and not someone with whom I would like to associate, but other than that, it's just a burden that person has chosen to bear and it is none of my business.  Just like it's none of my business who they would like to sleep with, who they have enjoyed consensual sexual activity with, or how many times they fell short of the mark raising their children.  There are a lot of reasons why I may not like or associate with a person, their racist beliefs would be one. 

Unless ... the racist desires to use the power of the state to violate the creator given rights of those viewed perjoratively.

If you think people that are purple are subhuman, I don't care, but if you try to get the state to force people that are purple to go live in a certain confined area, or to keep the Purples out of public places, or to infringe on their voting rights - or even worse, you act to injure them - OK, now there's grounds for a fight.  And I don't say that lightly because my entire working life has been as one who serves to defend my fellow citizen - police officer or military officer for 25 years.

Sadly, though, this distinction (between those with bad feelings about others and those who act to hurt others or use the state to coerce others) is no longer made, and that is largely because those who wish to make a fuss about "racism" are the ones trying to use the government to deprive the rights of a group of people.  Usually, they wish to gain the sympathy of one group, by promising to help that group at the expense of another group, and with plenty of justification for why that's OK.  Not to mention a dose of rationalization for why I should be ashamed of myself for opposing their attempt to use the government to get by force what they can't get by persuation and cooperation.

So while the author continues to use INs like "America has a lot of work to do", I hope what is really meant is that each of us has to work every day to respect the Constitutionally afforded rights of our fellow citizens while taking responsibility for ourselves and our chosen obligations to our families and those other causes we freely serve. 

And I hope he doesn't mean "we have to use the coercive force of the government to get people to behave in a way that pleases me."

Post script:  Most folks use the term "racist" nowadays when what they mean is "bigot" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot_(disambiguation))
The KKK is racist, they would love to use force to subjugate others based on race and/or religion.  My friend who associates negative characteristics to some ethnic groups is a bigot.

Taleb On Risk and Incentive

The promise of “no more bailouts,” enshrined in last year’s Wall Street reform law, is just that — a promise. The financiers (and their lawyers) will always stay one step ahead of the regulators. No one really knows what will happen the next time a giant bank goes bust because of its misunderstanding of risk.

The Romans even figured out how to deter cowardice that causes the death of others with the technique called decimation: If a legion lost a battle and there was suspicion of cowardice, 10 percent of the soldiers and commanders — usually chosen at random — were put to death.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/opinion/end-bonuses-for-bankers.html?_r=1

In this same line of thought - how about the politicians don't get paid unless they keep the budget balanced?

Swing and A Miss

Rather, ten of them.  Read on ...

http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/28/top-10-things-obama-should-have-done-differently/

Utopian Dreams For All

We’ve got to cut spending much more dramatically. Yes, that includes finding ways to cut Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and other bloated programs that help the nation’s most poor. And, yes, that means cutting our military spending, too.
Sorry to say it, but we also have to raise taxes. While I’m all for smaller government and lower taxes – we simply can’t dig out of this hole with spending cuts alone. We bear the burden of the generations of low taxes and high spending before us.
If it were up to me (it’s clearly not), I’d favor a 2:1 ratio. We’d cut twice the spending (as I believe our spending is our core problem) than we would raise taxes – but we’d still do both.
http://manvsdebt.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-debt-ceiling-debacle/

There's no way to restore fiscal sanity without, as the author writes, addressing the entitlement programs.  They are, and medicare in particular is, over fifty percent of the unfunded future obligation.  Unless and until that is dealt with, there's almost no sense in fighting over the rest of it. 

By contrast, SS could be fixed with a few nips and tucks - raise the age hurdles, means testing, and of course, decreased payments.  To a degree, this is all being done via dilution of the dollar (That sort of funny money game doesn't work at all with medicare).  Social security going forward will be interesting to track across the suck factor - it's already such a marginal program that they have to force people to participate via gun point.  How much worse will it get?

As for taxes - we don't need higher tax rates, unless that produces higher tax revenue.  Precision in language as regards taxes is everything.  To assume that raising tax rates will increase the number of dollars flowing into the treasury is quite uninformed as it pretends that human behavior is not affected by incentives.

I also think the tax increase talk is deceptive per se.  We don't suffer from a lack of taxation, we suffer from uncontrolled spending.  You can do nothing about the later by manipulating the former.  Were the politicians to establish a spending limit, raising tax revenues might be productive.  However, since they clearly spend until they cannot spend more, I see no reason to believe, in fact I think it is deluded to believe, that having raised taxes, politicians won't find another reason why they have to spend it.

The means by which we tax ourselves could be changed such that we don't waste so much human capital maneuvering around the tax system (personal and business), and we don't distort the process of choosing how to invest by tax perversions.  My vote is a massive simplification with a four year phase out of deductions, and elimination of taxation on businesses.  The resulting explosion in business activity, and elimination of billions of dollars of pure waste that is currently part and parcel of tax planning and compliance, will result in hiring and productive employment of many people.

Lastly, as addressed here, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576510660976229354.html without a growth aspect in the "plan" for managing the nation's unsustainable spending, I'm not sure there's a solution.  You can take what politicians know about stimulating growth and stuff that into a tissue box.  The only proven strategy is liberty, and that is anathema to the political animal since it renders him/her insignificant.  The pretense of significance is the life blood of the political animal.  Logically, the chance that any political body will increase liberty, "except at gunpoint" - a term I mean figuratively - is poor at best.

So all we're asking politicians to do is to: 

*revamp medicare to a system that works, does not distort medical pricing to the absurd degree it is being done now (complete disconnect between value, cost and price in the current socialized/capitalized bastard child of our "health care system").  In short, they must unlegislate all of the value distorting things they've created since WWII

*set spending limits on themselves, increase liberty, and decrease their significance in our lives

*make un-political choices about taxes that will increase the number of people who pay, and drastically simplify the ways by which tax obligations are determined.  They must make choices that eliminate waste, choices that stimulate the motive to conduct business, choices that eliminate the significance of politicians in the tax process, and choices that don't allow politicians to say they "stuck it to the other side, which is why you should vote for me."  I'm not holding my breath on this ....

*make choices which might marginally increase tax revenues, but will still essentially put the burden on the political class to cease and desist buying favor by spending tax payer money

Short of a constitutional convention, I don't see how any of the above could be accomplished.  Thus most of the discussion will be more blathering about nothing.  The result:  crisis, which is usually the justification for an elevation of tyranny.

Barry writes about goodness here:  http://www.goodnessmovement.com/Page14.html

Barry's brain is immense and powerful, and I don't know how he sees the rubber meeting the road, but from my perspective, goodness comes from humans doing what they always will, serving their own self interest, through cooperation vice coercion.  Absent the power of the state, the ability of any group to coerce another is extremely limited. 

Government's primary job, day and night, should be to defend your rights against others, and others against you.  With government focused on that job, there's little for the "special interests" to fight over, and no real way to get ahead except by being the best at giving folks what they want in the market at a price they want to pay - and doing so better than all competitors (Wal Mart, Standard Oil, etc).

In short, I get simplistic along these lines:  either you believe in the power of coercion and think we just need "better politicians" doing "smarter" legislation to make it all better to create a just and fair utopia; or you think no one is smart enough to coordinate things as complex as economies and health care transactions and all the other immensity of our world, and so it's best to let people work it out cooperatively, warts and all.

As for me, I think the moment two people agree on mutually acceptable terms is "goodness."  Informed and wise mutual agreement is more goodness, and foolish mutual agreement is less goodness.  Both of those outcomes trump coercion by a third part.  This is known colloquially as "freedom."  Perhaps you have heard this term. 

The solution from my perspective is to stuff the Federal Government back into a box from which its powers are to provide for our common defense, and to ensure the States don't treat us any worse than the Federal Government is allowed to. 

Rove's BFO Prediction

Because they cannot defend his record, Team Obama will attempt to "kill" their political opponents, as one Democratic strategist told Politico.com this week. These are difficult days for our president. Buffeted by events, he looks weak, dazed and over his head. And in 15 months, unless he finds some way to turn things around, he will be voted out of office.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903918104576500330450458102.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

This one is pretty obvious.

Fight Fires With Fans. Really Big Ones.

The Arizona law’s fate actually was sealed in 1791, when the First Amendment was ratified; 220 years later, one wonders: When will people eager to empower government to regulate speech about itself abandon the fiction that political money can be regulated without regulating political speech?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-supreme-court-win-for-political-speech-and-political-money/2011/06/28/AGVX0mpH_story.html

Compare with this author's misguided take:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/high-court-deals-public-campaign-financing-a-heavy-blow/2011/06/28/AGDiIrpH_story.html

These types of laws are like trying to fight fires by using cooling fans. 

There's a reason people spend ooodles of money to win elections - governments have too much power, Federal, State and Local governments are not limited strongly enough to prevent the corruptions that result from excessive power. 

Therefore - people are willing to spend whatever it takes, in money and life energy, in order to gain control over that power.  POWER COMMANDS A POWER STRUGGLE.

It is oft said and still true - power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Limited government brings a reduced motive for gaining and keeping office.  If you can't use government to oppress your competitors (as is the purpose of unions), you won't give people money to run.  If you can use government to oppress your competitors (unions and any number of examples), you'll spend whatever you can to get a "favorably disposed" candidate in office. 

Those who dream of big government orchestrations of nirvanna either ignore or can't see this plain truth.

From Left To "Liberal"

Readers on both sides of Mamet’s current political stance can take issue with his social conservatism. He is, among other things, an unbending proponent of traditional gender arrangements; and yet who even on the left can deny the miseries that have attended the decline of the two-parent family? Nevertheless, it is exhilarating to hear so much common sense expressed with such forceful eloquence: “The honest man might observe…that no one gets something for nothing; that politicians go in poor and go out rich; that the Government screws up everything it touches; and that the Will to Believe is best confined to the Religious Venue, as to practice it elsewhere is just too damned expensive.”
Mamet is not a man with a plan. Neither the right nor the left is to be entirely trusted, and a complete national salvation may remain forever beyond our grasp. “We are a democracy,” he writes, “and as such do not generally elect our best people to office. How could we? They weren’t running.”
http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/02/david-mamets-conversion-story

Liberal as in the classic liberalism in which government is limited the People retain the responsibility to govern themselves.

Key Issue of 'What Is the Role of the State'?

And how much power is too much power?  At what point to ends justify means?  What is the definition of torture?

If the GOP is far too generous in giving the government leeway in "national defense", the Dems are absurd to admit that the government is not to be trusted with heavy handed interrogations but SHOULD be trusted with health care and coercive pensions.

Immediately following the killing of bin Laden, the issue of interrogation techniques became in some quarters the "dirty little secret" of the event. But as disclosed in the declassified memos in 2009, the techniques are neither dirty nor, as noted by Director Hayden and others, were their results little. As the memoranda concluded—and as I concluded reading them at the beginning of my tenure as attorney general in 2007—the techniques were entirely lawful as the law stood at the time the memos were written, and the disclosures they elicited were enormously important. That they are no longer secret is deeply regrettable.

It is debatable whether the same techniques would be lawful under statutes passed in 2005 and 2006—phrased in highly abstract terms such as "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment—that some claimed were intended to ban waterboarding even though the Senate twice voted down proposals to ban the technique specifically. It is, however, certain that intelligence-gathering rather than prosecution must be the first priority, and that we need a classified interrogation program administered by the agency best equipped to administer it: the CIA.

We also need to put an end to the ongoing investigations of CIA operatives that continue to undermine intelligence community morale.

Acknowledging and meeting the need for an effective and lawful interrogation program, which we once had, and freeing CIA operatives and others to administer it under congressional oversight, would be a fitting way to mark the demise of Osama bin Laden.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703859304576305023876506348.html?KEYWORDS=The+Waterboarding+Trail+to+bin+Laden#printMode

Randite Confused

Atlas Shrugged
You have sacrificed reason to faith.” (For example, attempts to prevent stem cell research on Biblical grounds or blind faith that Mr. Obama’s deliberately empty rhetoric about hope and change will magically produce prosperity.)

Even if I support this examination of the ideas in Rand's book, I regret that even the Randites can't get the facts right.  The decision about stem cell research was simply a decision not to spend more government money on research on stem cells except those those lines of cells already in research. 

The only thing more in line with my understanding of Rand's idea would be to stop all federal spending on this type of research. 

Picking nits?  Probably.  I expect more from advocates for liberty.

Friedman's Demonstration of the Fatal Conceit

The key to Friedman's analysis is the word "theoretically." Because, in reality China did no such thing. The country is still awash in plastic bags. And though you can be sent to the state's dungeons for innumerable crimes, using such bags isn't one of them -- yet.
Still, at least in theory, China is awesome because it can efficiently impose the right policies, right?
Wrong.
For years, I've been going after Friedman hammer and tongs for his authoritarian fetish. But perhaps the most damning critique is that banning plastic bags isn't necessarily the optimal policy.
A new study by the Environment Agency of England finds that those thin plastic bags have a smaller carbon footprint than reusable plastic or cotton satchels as well as disposable paper bags. According to "Evidence: Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags," you'd have to reuse a fashionable cotton bag at least 131 times to equal the low carbon footprint of a simple plastic bag.
If you reuse a plastic bag -- as a wastebasket liner perhaps -- they pull even further away as the most green technology.
Also, as other studies have shown, those trendy reusable bags provide a wonderful breeding ground for E. coli and other bacteria. That is, unless you wash them regularly. But if you do that, as my American Enterprise Institute colleague Ken Green notes, all that bleach, soap and hot water expand their carbon footprint as well.

Read more: Fads & myths make for poor public policy - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_731400.html#ixzz1KGLPnixc

Demonstrations of Hayek's observations are everywhere.  Beware the nice guy with a fetish for authoritarianism.

The superiority of undirected design is unquestionable - "the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design."
http://apolloswabbie.blogspot.com/2010/05/classic-quotes-ferguson.html

Fantasy, Let Me Introduce You to Reality

Fantasy, Meet Reality
This is a great read, and a great opening photo, both worth indulging in.  Sad?  Yes, it is that when fantasy is revealed and hope for long delayed suffering arrives.  These are great examples of why as little as possible should be entrusted to the feeble human minds of those who would be the leaders of a coercive monopoly state.

Recognizing a True Believer

That the FDA allows the industry to infuse it with so many evident poisons stands as an epic failure of public oversight.
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-16-aspartame-soda-caramel-BPA-diet-soda-kill-you

The linked article was written by a TB.  You can tell because they think that the problem with the FDA is it just isn't living up the ideals of a centralized government - more protection for those that need it.  In this case, he's worried about all us poor uninformed consumers who aren't being protected from the potential evils in a can of diet soda. 

In the article, the author laments the FDA's inability to stand up to the food industry.  But he's got it all backwards - it would be a massive surprise if the FDA WAS standing up to the food industry.  We've allowed the federal government to take control over massive sections of our economy and therefore our personal activities.  Businesses MUST struggle for influence in a system which is politicially, and therefore irrationally, controlled - or they will die. 

In short - political meddling by federal agencies with too much power isn't a surprise unless one is either:
1 - ignorant and naive
2 - a true believer in government, in which the facts will never be an obstacle to the faith

Let's face it, this is the least of the FDA's shortcomings.  It has yet to pronounce sugar a threat to health, despite a massive wave of diabetes in this country.  It has been the agent of perpetuating the statin scam, allowing even young, healthy women to be prescribed a drug which has never been shown to benefit women, and has only been shown to benefit men under age 65 with previously diagnosed heart disease.  It never asserted it's authority and has allowed the DoA to establish the food guidelines, not challenging them even thought their basis in science is tenuous at best. 

The entire concept is a joke.  The FDA serves predictable masters, politicians and monied interests, and there's no rational basis to believe it will ever do otherwise.

The Fiasco That Is Public Sector Unions

"In the private sector, the capitalist knows that when he negotiates with the union, if he gives away the store, he loses his shirt. In the public sector, the politicians who approve any deal have none of their own money at stake. On the contrary, the more favorably they dispose of union demands, the more likely they are to be the beneficiary of union largess in the next election. It's the perfect cozy setup."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022406520.html

Democracy, naturally, can only be saved by public-sector unions, which attain their political power and taxpayer-funded benefits by "negotiating" with politicians elected with the help of unions who use, well, taxpayer dollars. And you know, that doesn't sound like an oligarchy at all.  http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/02/25/krugmans_third_world_fantasy_109030.html

What’s happening in Wisconsin is, instead, a power grab — an attempt to exploit the fiscal crisis to destroy the last major counterweight to the political power of corporations and the wealthy. And the power grab goes beyond union-busting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1
Here's the funny part.  Krugman just figured out that politicians sometimes have bad intentions.  But he also figured out the cure:  Make sure the corruption runs both ways!  This way, unions and  union thugs can take money from their serfs and buy the votes of their elected officials, just like the wealthy!!!  This is a brilliant solution.  A simpleton like myself would think that perhaps there's far too much power in the hands of those who hold elected office, and the inevitable result of that fact is that politicians will abuse said power.  But what the heck to I know!  I mean, sure, the crux of the problem the founders of this nation were trying to deal with when they forged the US constitution was how to balance the need for a federal state strong enough to defend the States from outside coercion, whilst minimizing squabbling between the states, while not granting enough power to that Federal state that it could become tyrannical.  Yes, they were terrified of an over-arching federal or local government.  Good thing those bad times are past us and we can just trust those democratically elected to do the right thing.  Well, trust them to do the right thing as long as they are on OUR side of the political spectrum.  That must be the keen insight that super-geniuses like Krugman have that I'm just not getting. 


Though Walker -- who won office using obnoxious Third World oligarchic tactics, e.g., getting more votes than the other candidate -- is a cancer in the heart of democracy, union-funded Democrats evading their constitutional obligation to cast votes are only protecting the integrity of representative government by completely avoiding democracy.
You're getting it now, right?

Don't Worry, You'll Be Happy

http://www.economist.com/node/17722567?story_id=17722567

HT CrossFit.com

This was a great read, in particular because I'm 46.  Looks it's all gravy from here!

So, we've identified a human pattern.  How long until politicians try and use this data to justify some additional use of the coercive power of the state?

Power Must Be Fought For

http://cafehayek.com/2010/11/one-reason-to-hate-conservatives.html
Do you hate your fellow countrymen?  When?

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12550
Is the Fed a failure?

http://cafehayek.com/2010/11/prancing-preaching-posing-pols.html
Who's 'qualified' to talk about economic policies?  Palin?  The President?  Either? 

Neither!!

Krauthammer Sizes Up Election

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/28/AR2010102806270.html
Excerpts:
"In a radio interview that aired Monday on Univision, President Obama chided Latinos who "sit out the election instead of saying, 'We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.' " Quite a uniter, urging Hispanics to go to the polls to exact political revenge on their enemies - presumably, for example, the near-60 percent of Americans who support the new Arizona immigration law.

"This from a president who won't even use "enemies" to describe an Iranian regime that is helping kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. This from a man who rose to prominence thunderously declaring that we were not blue states or red states, not black America or white America or Latino America - but the United States of America."
"Every president gets two bites at the apple: the first 18 months when he is riding the good-will honeymoon, and a second shot in the first 18 months of a second term before lame-duckness sets in. Over the next two years, the real action will be not in Congress but in the bowels of the federal bureaucracy. Democrats will advance their agenda on Obamacare, financial reform and energy by means of administrative regulation, such as carbon-emission limits imposed unilaterally by the Environmental Protection Agency."
"...reaction to this obvious political truth is in keeping with the convention that all things partisan or ideological are to be frowned upon as "divisive." This is pious nonsense. What is the point of a two-party democracy if not to present clear, alternative views of the role of government and, more fundamentally, the balance between liberty and equality - the central issue for any democracy?"
---He means of course 'equality of outcome' as there's no other kind that is discussed in politics.  Even that, though, does not exist nor can it.  Humans are unequal in so many ways that no matter the effort by government to offend liberty through use of coercive force, it cannot equalize human experience or decision making.
CK continues:
"Obama, to his credit, did not get elected to do midnight basketball or school uniforms. No Bill Clinton he. Obama thinks large. He wants to be a consequential president on the order of Ronald Reagan. His forthright attempt to undo the Reagan revolution with a burst of expansive liberal governance is the theme animating this entire election.
"Democratic apologists would prefer to pretend otherwise - that it's all about the economy and the electorate's anger over its parlous condition. Nice try. The most recent CBS/New York Times poll shows that only one in 12 Americans blames the economy on Obama, and seven in 10 think the downturn is temporary. And yet, the Democratic Party is falling apart. Democrats are four points behind among women, a constituency Democrats had owned for decades; a staggering 20 points behind among independents (a 28-point swing since 2008); and 20 points behind among college graduates, giving lie to the ubiquitous liberal conceit that the Republican surge is the revenge of lumpen know-nothings."
---I agree that it's not the economy per se that's driving this election, although, if the economy were turning for the better, the response to what the President has been revealed to be would not be so strong.  As I've written before in more detail, the strength of the opposition is based in the fact that folks saw what they wanted to see in the Candidate - they saw something that wasn't.  When their eyes were opened to what he is, which is to say a garden variety liberal who's been saying all along that he was ideologically committed to liberalism, they felt duped.  I think the mainly fooled themselves, but I'm glad for the anger.