Saturday, January 17, 2009

More Roads to Nowhere.

One of my favorite blogs right now is Liberal Rapture. J-SOM has a great post today on Obamanomics. Specifically on the new found love to print more and more money to solve today's problems.

There are two articles that are well worth reading, one by Ron Paul and one by Paul Krugman.

I have more than a few reservations on Krugman's Keys to Success.

Like any good epic poem, Krugman invokes his muse. In this case Krugman picks, Melpomene.
How bad is the economic outlook? Worse than almost anyone imagined.

The Democrats have been saying this for over the past year. Even before the GDP went into the red, they were crying out for a Recession. Then when the GDP did go into the red, they were calling it the new Depression. How else could they take advantage of a crisis of their own making? Or is it still too much of a "Distraction" to talk about the Democratic culpability in the mess cause by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack, Countrywide and Leihman Bros? Who were the leading recipients of campaign cash from those companies? But I digress, that is for a different post.
Back to Mr. Krugman, who likes to play up to his Nobel Prize cult followers, by using job data, but like a true intellectual dishonest political hack, fails to mention any of the causes to the job loss data. He gives Bush some props,
Even before the crisis, job growth under Bush averaged only 800,000 a year...
Yet yet fails to give the Democrats their props too.
and over the past year, instead of gaining a million-plus jobs, we lost 2 million. Today we're continuing to lose jobs at the rate of a half million a month.
Who was in control of Congress over the last TWO YEARS? Yet later on Krugman acknowledges that you can never have 100% percent employment.
"Full employment" means a jobless rate of five percent
Wait aren't we at 7.2%? Doesn't sounds like the 15% during the Great Depression does it? Not far off from what Krugman even acknowledges to be full employment.

Krugman article goes on to say that no other President did anything at all to help or hurt the economy its all the Feds doing. I can reasonably see some validity in this argument to a point. I'm not an economist or pretend to be, but I find it very hard to believe that any President has and can do nothing to help or hurt the Economy, because it's all run the the shadowy Fed Reserve system. Krugman uses this argument mainly because he is at heart a Liberal. Nothing wrong with that at all. Yet he tries to hide his Liberalism behind his Princeton Professorship. He like any other political hack cherry picks the data that best suits his preconceived notions. Is it any wonder economics is not considered a true science?
The Bailout was and is a failure. Too many banks and companies are allowed to survive that would be better off six feet under. Business week has an excellent article about Zombie Companies. That I urge everyone to read.
I do have to agree with Krugman that Bush didn't attach enough strings to the TARP funds, but wasn't it the Democrats that passed the Bailout bill? I seem to remember something about the Democrats being in con troll of the House and Senate during the current economic troubles.
Krugman advises Obama to nationalize the financial system. Make no mistake this leads to Socialism and is the first step to a Communistic Sate. Krugman at least has the calls to call it what it is.
And the truth is that you will, in a way, be engaging in temporary nationalization. But that's OK: In the long run we don't want the government running financial institutions, but for now we need to do whatever it takes to get credit flowing again.
All in the name of public good, right Comrade? All I have to ask is name a Government that has ever willingly given up nationalization without fear of revolt? Oh but there is more!
Build more Roads and bridges, upgrade the internet and electrical grids and give more money to the States and Local governments. They all sounds good and in fact I agree with some of them. Roads and Bridges need to be improved, but its not the governments job to upgrade electrical and internet systems, let the companies that run, operate and make money from them pay the bill. I don't want my tax dollars being spent to give internet access to a hermit living 200 miles from civilization in Montana. Let them move closer to a city or for heaven sakes, make them get a aircard from AT&T, those things work practically everywhere now, no matter how slow they are.
Building roads and bridges sound good until you think about all the waste that is inherent in the system. How long will it take and how much money will be wasted planning these massive public works projects? How many will actually do any good for the public? We don't need any more bridges to nowhere.
I'm not even going to go into Health Care, I don't see how Krugman can even seem to think Health Care is a cause for the current economic downturn. It just shows his political hackness, in my opinion. Health Care is a separate issue and taking it into the Stimulus Bill is intellectually dishonest. No wonder why Krugman wants it in there.

Make no mistake I don't like Krugman. I'm a Wall Street Journal Reader after all. I think he is a political hack and a charlatan. He is on par with Al Gore, in my opinion. They both received a Nobel Prize for no apparent reason, except of course if cherry picking data is reason enough alone. Like Gore, Krugman is trying to leverage his Nobel into his politics. Gore's global warming farce is finally being discredited and soon Krugman's new New Deal will be discredited soon before his ideas cause a new Great Depression.

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