from my article in American Thinker
We need more than a change in parties
6/25/10
excerpt
We need to do more than just reduce taxes on business. We need to create some comfort and consistency that they will remain low. Nobody is likely to make long term commitments when they are concerned that tax and regulatory policies can radically change every two to four years. The extreme actions of the Democrats in control have severely hindered our recovery; but counter measures from the Republicans, even if economically correct, will not restore the confidence that is needed without some political unity to create the conditions to keep the business environment receptive. This requires a change in more than political parties; this requires a change in political culture. This is a much more difficult change to make.
The Reagan revolution drove assets from tangibles to the financial sector. Obama is reversing the direction. From my article in American Thinker on 7/6/10.
In Praise of Financial Inequality
excerpt
Financial assets are an investment in the future; tangible assets are an investment in today. Driving money out of investments for future growth into tangible assets hurts economic growth and retards long term thinking, a hallmark of both a civilized society and economic growth.
Not only is the enjoyment from tangible assets not taxed, it is not considered when we measure the equality of income distribution in America. This is why there was a growth in income inequality after the Reagan economic revolution, and this is also why it was not a bad thing.
If Obama and the Congress succeed in raising taxes and igniting inflation we will see a shift back to tangible assets at the expense of a growing economy. He will have succeeded in reducing income inequality and we will all be worse off for it.
Professor Angelo Codevilla’s excellent piece in American Spectator, “America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution“ is the must read piece of political analysis in the last month. It is rich with insight that explains the crossroad we inhabit.
On Monday, July 19 Rush Limbaugh focused on this piece and it caused a shutdown at the American Spectator site for a while.
Also on Monday American Thinker published a piece I wrote “The Ruling Class Creates Its Own Demise“. My piece developed from Cordevilla’s article. Cordevilla helped me to see why the same political forces that brought the Democrats to dominate the Executive and Legislative branches may also be responsible for unseating them. An excerpt:
Nothing unites like a common threat and that is what is bringing the current cohesiveness to the Country Class. The Tea Party movement is only a part of it. The disaffected Republicans, Libertarians, and the Independents are the rest of it. The fact they do not have a strong single unifying set of beliefs would be a very limiting factor if the Democrats had not strayed so far from the center, and if the economy was not having such an adverse impact on their lives.
It is a mistake to assume that America will tolerate elitist solutions and systems long ingrained and accepted in European political culture. The Country Class are more interested in managing their private lives and daily affairs as long as their leaders do not threaten their values and their way of life. When they are thus threatened we can expect a seismic shift at the polls.
Cordevilla uses the term country class, not to denote ‘hicks’, but as a reference to the rest of the country not included in the Ruling Class.
America lives in fear of the Great Depression. Europe lives in fear of runaway inflation. That makes Obama’s Keynesian addiction to deficit spending a bitter pill for our G-20 partners to swallow.
from my article in American Thinker
Continents Apart in Ideology
7/1/10
excerpt
Obama’s prescription for more deficit spending has run into the brick wall of the G-20 who has rejected that policy. America is being lectured on fiscal restraint by the president of the European central bank. It would be hard to find a clearer example of our loss of economic leadership.
Any expected benefit from deficit spending is being undone by job killing legislation and higher taxes that is freezing business investment or growth. The more frequent and the more drastically we change the rules of the game the less likely business is to respond to any stimulus. Frequent radical change encourages short term thinking at the expense of long term planning.
I have been a fan of Fareed Zakaria,l read and enjoyed his Post American World, and I like the depth of his interviews on the TV show GPS.
His recent article in Newsweek (“Obama’s CEO Problem”- 7/12/20101 print edition), however, showed a detachment from the world most of us function in and an analysis that seemed outright foolish. He correctly sees a problem of American corporations sitting on top on $1.8 trillion in cash yet is blind to the fact that the reason they are paralyzed in cash is that the very president he has supported created policies that are as anti-business as any seen in 100 years. He somehow thinks the elitist CEOs in New York he interacts with some how represent the core of American business.
My retort to Zakaria’s analysis is in the July 14, 2010 American Thinker in “Fareed Zakaria Thinks the Problem is the Solution“.
excerpt:
The stimuli enacted so far have not worked and doubling down on a failed policy is not a case for success. As Arthur Laffer wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal (“Unemployment Benefits Are Not Stimulus” July 8, 2010), if the dollars spent on the failed stimulus policies had instead been directed at an 18 month tax holiday for everyone we would have spent less money and unemployment would be near 2.5%.
Fareed, like so many, mistakes eloquence for competence. Some of our worst policies have been enacted by some of our smartest leaders. Smart people can rationalize some of the worst ideas.
It doesn’t take the smartest to enact wise polices. It takes an open mind free of blind adherence to bad ideology and free of the hubris that discounts experience and common sense.
It takes a leader other than the one we have.
