The mother of all Stimuli

Its official. World governments are being run and advised by people who have escaped from asylums holding the criminally insane. How else can you have a proposal like this–

It has been on and off for months, but a key announcement in Alistair Darling’s budget in 10 days’ time looks like being a car “scrappage” scheme. The motor industry is in trouble and thinks the best way to reverse an alarming slide in sales is to give people who trade in old cars for new or nearly-new ones a £2,000 allowance.

As Cynicus Economicus asks, why not bomb cities instead? Why not evacuate, say, New York City and send in a bomber to carpet bomb the whole city? I agree with C.E.’s conclusion-

If ever there were an indication of the absolute bankruptcy of ideas to fight the economic crisis, an indication of the underlying idiocy of government policy, then surely this is it. They are acting to destroy wealth to ‘save the economy’, and doing so at the expense of the future economy. They are spending future wealth in order to destroy present wealth.

Quite simply, the mind boggles.

It does, indeed.

This one’s a gem

“Normally word perfect, Obama ummed, ahed and waffled for the best part of two and a half minutes.”

Tax ’em all!

And stop blaming the “bania.” So says Swami. A good article after a long time-

Through history, said my former editor Girilal Jain, whenever things go wrong, Indian rulers blamed the bania. The US is no different. After the global meltdown, US politicians are baying for the blood of financiers. They have just legislated a 90% tax on bonuses of staff at AIG, the insurance giant rescued by the US government. Legislators were angry that financiers responsible for AIG’s collapse could be rewarded with bonuses, and sought to expropriate these.

Many Indians will cheer. Yet, banias alone are rarely responsible for disasters: many others are usually responsible too. The financial crisis occurred in the most regulated sector of the US and world economy. So it was a failure not just of bankers but of the state, regulators, investors, and all other participants. If you can tax AIG staff, why not all the others?

For starters, what about a retrospective 90% tax on the two Fed chiefs, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke? They knew bubbles were forming in housing and stock markets, but instead of halting this they claimed it was best to let the bubbles burst and then sweep up the mess.

Next, tax all US legislators who for decades sought to make all Americans home owners through excessive implicit and explicit subsidies. One law forced banks to lend to sub-prime poor borrowers. Legislators created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored entities that bought or underwrote four-fifths of all US mortgages, and enjoyed exemption from normal regulations. Politicians repeatedly rejected stiffer regulation despite Greenspan’s warning that these under-regulated giants posed huge risks…

I was wondering about all the craziness that I have witnessed over the past year – in politics, in economics, in everything. And for some strange reason, all I could think of was the Humpty Dumpty rhyme. And then I found this senseless verbiage-

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,'” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,'” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.
“They’ve a temper, some of them – particularly verbs, they’re the proudest – adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs – however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

And it fits – senseless politics and senseless sentences make a nice pair. All these politicians and economists – from Barney Frank to Krugman, from Chidambaram to Amartya Sen, deserve the Avicenna treatment–

Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.

The “paradox” of thrift, fiddling with the economy, irritating people to no end and robbing them blind, “protecting” capitalism by regulating it, and then “reinventing” it. Imbeciles – they, and every body who believes them.

DeLong and the short of it

Steve Horwitz of “The Austrian Economists” writes about how economist Bradford DeLong, fervent supporter of the “stimulus”, has been tampering with his opponents’ arguments on his blog. As Horwitz says-

An honest scholar would let his readers decide rather than refusing to post any evidence that might possibly contradict him. And DeLong has the chutzpah to call critics of Obama’s stimulus package “ethics-free”?

But as people should know by now, Keynes and ethics should never be mentioned in the same sentence; it is an insult to the great man. He was, after all, to paraphrase Nietzsche, “beyond good and evil”. While the “conservatives” of the world believe in “Our Lord”, the Krugmans (“Blame it on the lender”), and Stiglitzes (“Free Market”), and Rodriks (“Racket-onomics”), and DeLongs (“The End of the Age of the ‘Free’ man”) of this world believe in “Our Lord, The State”. So it would be stupid of libertarians and the-real-liberals to expect that “any” kind of intelligent – intellectually honest – debate can be carried out with them – the fundamental beliefs of the three groups are poles apart and the differences are unbridgeable.

One more thing; DeLong has joined the crowd of Yahoos unloading on Rand, though he’s doing it a bit nicely – by warning Christians that Ayn Rand is anti-religion. Maybe he should also warn them that Lord Keynes was a homosexual, or at least a bi, and what Rand thought about “them”, as did the APA. That would set up a wonderful debate on ECONOMICS.

Arguing against someone whose political position essentially was that man must not be used as a means to an end, someone who said this about her magnum opus–

[Atlas Shrugged was written] to glorify the real kind of productive, free-enterprise businessman in a way he has never been glorified before. [But] I make mincemeat out of the kind of businessman…that runs to government for assistance, subsidies, legislation and regulation.

no – arguing against such a position, shows you on which side of the freedom divide you really stand.

The right Larry, Comrade Obama etc

There are two Larrys in the US – The wrong Larry (Summers), and the right Larry (White). Listen to the right Larry.

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Mr. Almost Everyone thinks that “Politics trumps economics.” He is right, for the wrong reason. Read Mr. Almost Everyone’s reasoning. A commentator is not happy with either Mr. Everyone or Obama. He writes-

Don’t worry..ObamaNation announced a new plan this morning, the Special Holdings Investmetn Trust..It will make the boo-boo feel better. But if you have come to realize that this Lenist with no experience is on track to be one of the greatest destroyers of wealth of all time, then consider this instead:

Come to the Chicage Tea Party….July 4, 2009

Comrade Premier Obama: We want our money back….You can keep The Change

I agree. Obama should keep “The Change,” and “do nothing” for sometime.