How About Some Free Chocolate With That Free Debt? No? You Say Why Now If it is Free Later? Huh.

polifrog



Gonzalo Lira:

Suppose that I promised to give you free chocolate for the next three years: How much chocolate would you eat today? A pound? Half a pound? A few ounces? Or would you not eat any chocolate at all, once I made the announcement?

...

In point of fact, if the chocolate is free, you might not eat any chocolate at all. Every time you make the decision as to what to eat, you might well find yourself repeating the same mantra: “Chocolate is free—I can have it any time I want. So I won’t have any now.”

...

This is the problem Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve currently have—and it’s their own stupid fault: They have promised to maintain interest rates at effectively 0% until at least the end of 2014—they have in fact announced this zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) as the hallmark of their strategy to reignite the economy—

—but then they’re surprised when businesses aren’t borrowing more. They’re surprised when lending is in fact contracting. They’re surprised when the American economy doesn’t start borrowing—and thus growing—like crazy.

So the American economy obviously doesn’t benefit from ZIRP. In fact, it stagnates because of ZIRP.

Click through to see who actually does benefit.

Pushing strings through Keynesian levers benefits none over the long run and the operators over the short run...





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Ask Not What Keyes Can do For You, But What Austerity Can Do For Your Nation...

polifrog




 Skype and Sensibility:

In the middle of this year, two rating agencies, Standard & Poor's and Fitch, upgraded Estonia's credit rating. The country had a budget surplus of €115 million in the first two quarters, and it is expected to virtually balance its budget for the entire year. Government debt is about 6.6 percent of the gross domestic product, as compared with 120 percent in Italy, 160 percent in Greece and 80 percent in Germany. In the first two quarters of 2011, the Estonian economy grew at an annualized rate of 8 percent.
...

"But when we had finally escaped from Soviet socialism, we were sick and tired of government centralism. We wanted precisely the opposite in all respects: We wanted a transparent state. A country that isn't constantly intervening, nationalizing businesses, placing a bureaucracy above everything and imposing rules on people in every respect."

...

"I don't want to pass judgment on Germany or Greece. All I can say is that Estonia is contributing its part of the bailout fund, even though our average income is smaller than that of the Greeks. And that, by the way, is a bitter pill to swallow for many Estonians."

...

Estonia finally joined the euro zone this January. The euro had always been the country's declared goal. In the last few years, starting in 2008, the Estonians had fought their way through the worst economic crisis they had ever seen, triggered by the global financial crisis and the bursting of the local real estate bubble. The economy shrank by 14 percent in 2009.

Then three things happened. First, the government announced a harsh austerity program. The government bureaucracy was thinned out, healthcare and social services were cut back, and even the streetlights in Tallinn were switched off at 3:30 in the morning. Businesses reduced wages by up to 40 percent, with the promise they would be increased as soon as the economy improved. The government did not pump borrowed funds into the economic cycle. Instead, it did what economists call internal devaluation.

The second -- and oddest -- development here was that the Estonians stoically accepted these measures. There was no unrest and no protests.

The third thing that happened was the positive outcome of this blood, sweat and tears strategy. Last year, Estonia easily satisfied the Maastricht criteria. In fact, its government finances were sounder than anywhere else in the European Union.

The US was once an Estonia, but unfortunately according to Nixon we are all Keynesians now.




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The Final Sunday...

polifrog



martinra (dailypundit)

If all that were needed in order to sustain a permanent state of moderate growth and prosperity were a little bit of government and central bank tugging one way on booms and the other way on busts, then Keynesianism would work fine. Keynesianism fails in the long term because the corrections are not mathematical accidents, not merely lines on the graph, but necessary events to permit new growth. The tonic of failure, of bankruptcy, and of creative destruction is necessary to clear away error, drive out incompetence and deadwood, reallocate capital towards its more effective users, and permit growth to resume. Delay the pain and you delay the healing.

Here's to the Last Day Before the Healing Begins...



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Keynesian Solutions at Work...

polifrog




The largest and longest dip in employment is the present economy.

Remember, a double dip is likely scenario at this point, the rise in the middle of a double dip being debt funded Keynesian solutions giving the impression of an expansion when the reality is much different.

Questionable government debt funded positive GDP numbers aside, we have been in a depression since 2008.

Enjoy the ride.


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More Keynsian Cowbell--Automatic Stabilizers...

polifrog


In another example of Keynesian solutions resulting in the flatlining of American prosperity, American poverty was falling until the war on poverty and those much loved "automatic stabilizers" kicked into action.



polifrog

Using Keynes to Remedy the Inequity of Rising Standards of Living Between Generations...

polifrog

Today Dr. Brod gave us the generational redistibutionst's argument for Keynesianism:

Economists have generally pointed out that given steadily rising standards of living, what would really be inequitable would be leaving no debt to future generations (which is the core point of Queenan's article).

In most cultures leaving a stronger, wealthier tomorrow to subsequent generations would be a source of pride.

Only in liberalism would such success be a source of envy.

How best to remedy the inequity of the rising standards of living that benefit unborn generations?

Keynes and its generational redistribution, of course. Diminishing tomorrow for today through debt.

The result being the uniform equity of no rising standard of living across generations. Heck, we know it works, just look at Japan and it's success with Keynesian sourced generational redistribution otherwise known as Japan's 20 year recession.

Ultimately arguing for Keynes' generational redistributionist qualities is an admission of Keynesian born economic stagnancy and failed growth policy.

Bugs can be features to the socialist.
Insidious.



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Christina Romer Accurately Labels Our Keynesian Attempt at a Recovery as a "Growth-less Recovery"...

polifrog



Remember those green shoots? They were the result of Keynesian stimulus spending and revealed themselves to be no more than a blip in GDP. Although there is no doubt that stimulus showed up in GDP measurements, there was no organic economic growth as a result of that stimulus spending.

Christina Romer, former Chair of White House Council of Economic Advisers, correctly recognizes that Keynesian solutions result in what she calls a "growth-less recovery".




Thank you for the term...





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Extending Recessions via Keynesian Solutions...

polifrog



It should be noted that the longest recessions and depressions as exemplified by the experiences of both Japan 90's and 2000's and the US during the Great Depression and our current recession have coincided with the greatest use of Keynesian solutions.










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Ron Paul's Liberty Defined...

polifrog



I have not read Liberty Defined yet, but I have read some excerpts via Whiskey and Gunpowder.

I particularly like this quote on Keynesianism:

“…Something did change with the publication of The General Theory. Keynes gave the governments of the world a seemingly scientific rationale for doing what governments wanted to do anyway.”

The rationalization for spending and growth at all levels of governance gifted to government by Keynesian Theory is deplorable. As I have argued previously the result is that:

Over almost a century Bastardized Keynesian Theory has become the Wmap of public spending policy; it has become the dark energy behind our ever expanding national debt, and is at the heart of our current economic malaise.

It is a shame that there are men who make their living off the defense of such policy.





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Keynesian Failure...

polifrog



Replacing God:

...Almost everyone in the West, and many in the developing world, has bought into some elements of the idea. What it boils down to is a hubristic notion that we have the knowledge and wisdom to organize our fellow men for a collective "good" that we define. Ancient emperors of the pagan world used to operate on this principle; the divine-right monarchs of Europe did so, as have Marxist revolutionaries, fascists, and autocratic rulers in the Islamic world.

But the modern West too has bought into this idea, hook, line, and sinker. We demonstrate our fealty to it whenever we speak in complacent accents of government, operating on some organizing principle, "creating jobs" for us, saving us from poverty and death, preventing all forms of injustice, saving the planet, or properly allocating "society's resources."

Other peoples have paid the price of government-worship more visibly and summarily than we have. But the monstrous debt staring down the world's advanced nations is part of the price we are paying, and it is an inevitable result of our decision to give over so much of our lives to secular, material collectivism. Collectivist schemes produce only debt, resentment, discouragement, and want because they put humans and human ideas in the place of God.

...

Barack Obama didn't start our civilization on its current path. In a sense, as I have noted in other writings, he is the one left holding the bag as the civilization that produced him is confronted with the bankruptcy of its bad ideas. He knows only how to tax, spend, regulate, and discuss taxation, spending, and regulation, because that is what our civilization has given itself over to. We have put government policy and government programs in the place of God, and until we get our own minds and hearts right on that score, we might as well be up there at the podium with the president, suffering the slings and arrows of unkind reviews and public criticism.

I would add forcing our nation to operate within the Keynesian mechanism, an argument to allow the few to control the many, has bestowed longterm misery on our nation.



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Rep. Brad Miller -- A Grade School Economist...

polifrog


From Fabius Maximus:

After three years neither the public nor many of our leaders see the driver of the housing crisis: we built too many homes. In some places (e.g., Las Vegas, California’s central valley) far in excess of any real demand. Outmigration from mismanaged and dying urban areas (e.g., Detroit) caused more over-capacity. Supercharging the bubble was the purchase of homes by people who could not afford the prices paid. But overcapacity was the primary driver.

[emphasis added]


The obvious nature of this statement is lost on Brad Miller, who in an act of comedic brilliance (were it not so tragic) offered up H.R. 5409, the Residential Construction Lending Act this summer.

Brad Miller's solution to excess capacity?... more supply!!

Brad Miller, Grade School Economist.



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Rep. Brad Miller (NC-13) - Dressing Up Bank Bailouts as Saving Jobs...

polifrog



Brad Miller is at it again -- Dressing up Bank bailouts as jobs protection through an overtly friendly press.


Eastern Wake News:

Mortex owner Ed Morrell met with U.S. Rep. Brad Miller on Wednesday to explain how the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development office helped work out the details for a loan that kept his company afloat.

And this is how it was done...

Capital Bank's Triangle Region president Todd Warrick suggested the company and the bank work on an application to the USDA.

Under the terms of the deal, Capital Bank loaned Mortex $2.6 million on a 15-year note. They loaned the company another $500,000 on a 10-year note. The bank also extended a $750,000 line of credit, which Morrell says he does not plan to use. The loans are collateralized by the buildings and Morrell's personal savings.

Mortex didn't borrow any money from the government, a point Morrell made Wednesday in a meeting with employees. The deal calls for the USDA to guarantee 80 percent of the loans.

That means if Mortex defaults, the USDA would pay Capital Bank 80 percent of the loan balance.

And because the loans are fully collateralized, Capital Bank's exposure is limited.

That puts the pressure on Morrell and his family, which owns the privately-held company.

"(Morrell's wife) Kissie and I are on the hook," Ed Morrell told employees Wednesday. "If we fail, we lose everything we have."

Wouldn't you like to be Capital Bank in this transaction?

• Make a loan that is fully collateralized.
• Make interest on a no-risk loan due to an 80% back-stop on losses. In this case the loans total $3.1 million (credit lines do not qualify for the USDA 80% back-stop).
  

The interest rate of a loan is usually based on the risk of the loan. In this case the loan is fully backed with assets plus, in the event of default, coverage for 80% of the losses in the loan value. Where is the risk? There is none, yet the bank presumably charges interest. The interest rate is not given in the article, but business loan interest rates are generally quite a bit higher than home loans. In any event, interest charged on a risk free loan above 3% (estimated cost of loan administration and profit) is a government subsidized giveaway to the banks. The interest rate charged by Capital Bank is certainly much greater than 3%.


--This is a possible win for employees of Mortex, if Mortex doesn't fail.
--This is an absolute win/win no risk event for Capital Bank, whether Mortex survives or not.
--Supporting a weak business in a dying industry on the backs of taxpayers is a no win for America.


But how did Eastern Wake News report all this in the opening paragraph?

More than 600 people in Nash, Johnston and eastern Wake counties still have jobs thanks to provisions in a federal stimulus package that loosened underwriting rules for loans to companies in rural areas.

Brad Miller added:

"If you hear of people who say the stimulus package never saved a job, you can look at them and tell them it saved yours," Miller said.

It must be nice having friends in the press who are willing to throw reputation to the wind for the cause of your election.

Imagine the influence, though, -- Mortex beholden to government, Capital Bank beholden to government handouts, employees beholden to Brad Miller, and government under pressure of a $3.o8 million payout to keep Mortex from failing.

Now imagine weakened business across America taking advantage of such loans and the government giveaway (whether the business defaults or not) to Brad Miller's Bank friends at the expense of the productive class. Risk is for the little people not for the Miller's friends at the banks. Meanwhile Brad Miller dresses up this fleecing of citizens as a jobs saver. Immoral governance.

Are these connections likely to end in economic vitality, or or will they result in increased government influence for the ruling class and a loss of influence for the citizens of America?

Lastly, this sort of activity is what got America into the over leveraged position it that currently plagues our economy. According to this USDA Rural Development PDF this program "allows lenders to make loans above their legal lending limits".

Why does Brad Miller want the citizens of this nation indebted to his Big Bank Friends while protecting those same banks from all risk?

---

As an aside, a few questions have to be asked.

• Just how bad do the banks expect to economy to get that they require an 80% back-stop on fully collateralized loans before considering going forward?
  
• Just how bad does our government think things might get that they agree to this %80 back-stop?
  
• And finally, is inflation considered in measuring losses on these? A bout of inflation would not only increase the likely hood of default but it would run up the losses that could be counted against the %80 back-stop.

Thank You Brad Miller.


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David Price (NC-4) Diving beyond Debt and Morality

polifrog


It is a no-brainer....free is expensive, while a cost is less so.

This is a result of a duality in human nature, industriousness and laziness. Assuming a basis in law and property rights societies organized such that they harness the industriousness of humanity find wealth, while societies organized such that laziness is coaxed from their citizenry, yield poverty.

Here is why...

---Situation 1
A person spends their own money.
In this case a person sells a piece of their time on earth to earn money. With those dollars that person naturally makes judicious choices in respect to the spending of those dollars. When the whole of society spends judiciously and wisely, the resulting pressure on suppliers forces them to produce what end users want and forces the costs of goods to drop. Thus a cost makes a society efficient, lean, inexpensive, and above all moral.

---Situation 2
A person spends money that person did not earn.
The value of the dollars in such a person's possession are lessened as they are unearned dollars. That person will, by nature, not spend those dollars as judiciously as the individual in situation 1, but they do spend the dollars on those things they need and desire. This lessens the pressure on suppliers to keep costs down and efficiencies high, but, at least, the suppliers cater to the needs of society. We see this in charity. We also see it in the form of welfare.

---Situation 3
A person spends dollars they did not earn and they spend those dollars on others.
This is the worst of the three situations. The value of the dollars to the spender is less than in situation 1, but the impact of these dollars on society are worse than in situation 2. In this case the dollars are not spent by the end user, but rather a middle man whose interests are not interests of the end user, thus the suppliers cater not to the end user, but to the middle man. This skews what is produced by the producers away from the needs of the end user and toward the middleman, but most perniciously, this situation turns the end user into, not just a business cost, but an unproductive business cost to be minimized. Lastly, too much of this situation in combination with situation 2 results is a very inefficient society that leads to impoverishment as the price of goods rise. The citizenry, of course, still pays for the goods through their ever increasing taxes. Breaking the back of capitalism by divorcing the influence of the end user over the producers. In a word...immoral.

Unfortunately, our country is now saddled with a Situation 3 program in ObamaCare. Government will be buying goods for people with other people's money. Somehow Bob Etheridge and Barak Obama believe immorally restructuring our health-care so that the end user becomes an unproductive business cost is the bees knees.

Bob Etheridge does not understand that Situation 1 economics created the wealth we enjoy through its moral application of human industriousness. Bob Etheridge's support for ObamaCare suggests his support for the immorality of Situation 3 economics, increased debt, and national lethargy.

As an immoral situation 3 program, ObamaCare is inherently inefficient and immensely costly to a society, but President Obama had this to say by way of ABC....

President Barack Obama says he did a full court press for a health care system remake because "this country was going to go bankrupt."

How can a president expect anyone to believe such blithering nonsense? He may as well be convincing the citizens of the US that Guam is in danger of capsizing.



Considering that much of Washington's current budget will be funded through debt spending, and the addition of ObamaCare will serve to exacerbate the problem, we should consider a 4th spending situation not mentioned by Milton Friedman. The moral bankruptcy required to lead a nation in this direction is almost beyond comprehension, yet Bob Etheridge finds a way through the use of situation 4.

---Situation 4
A person spends dollars (not yet earned and not yet taxed from the unborn) on the currently living (for votes).
This combines the worst of situations 2 and 3 and then removes a representative's accountability to their voter's wallets. There is no accountability when a representative is picking the wallet of the unborn.

I guess it is a small thing, though, for Bob Etheridge to pick the wallets of the unborn when he supports the picking of their lives by way of abortion.

Bob Etheridge, a grade school economist.



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Rep. Brad Miller (NC- 13) - A Vote for a Bill Miller Does Not Support...

polifrog



Brad Miller is now on record of being in favor of repealing a portion of ObamaCare he previously supported when he voted in favor of the usurpation of state and individual liberty through ObamaCare.

The question is ... did he know he was supporting the 1099 burden lost within the breathlessly passed leviathan of ObamaCare when he previously voted in favor of its enactment?
Did Brad Miller know what he was voting for?
Did Brad Miller read the bill?

Does it matter when Democrats didn't want the 1099 correction to pass anyway?

Via TaxProf Blog:

House Democrats proposed repealing a piece of the health care overhaul Friday, a move designed to thwart Republican efforts to do the same thing and declare an early victory in their efforts to repeal the whole law.

Democrats proposed repealing new IRS reporting requirements that small business has warned would be overly burdensome. But they attached a new tax on Americans conducting business overseas— essentially a poison pill for Republicans who are unlikely to support a new tax.

The Democrats hold the majority in the house, but it was brought up on a procedural rule requiring two-thirds support. It failed, 241-154, largely on party lines with Republicans in opposition.

Lost in this is the Democrat's new found PayGo chastity, a chastity so great for this one bill only that they have to pay for the supposed loss in revenue from the 1099 tax which has not generated a dime with new taxes. This bill also required a supermajority to pass which in tandem with the new taxes guaranteed the bill's failure.

The Democrats did not want this correction to Obamacare to pass.... but they wanted it to appear that they supported it. Purely foul politics in practice.

These are the very same people who overlooked paygo when they poisoned a bill to help 9/11 responders with an onerously high and unfunded price tag of $7.4 billion and again requiring a super-majority for the bill's passage.

The Democrats did not want this bill that helped 9/11 responders to pass, but they wanted it to appear that they supported it. Purely foul politics in practice.

This is not governance ... this is political deception. This is Brad Miller lying to North Carolina through political manipulation of our government.

Brad Miller: Not your parent's Democrat.



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Rep. Brad Miller (NC-13) -- Arguing Dishonestly for Health-Care Reform....

polifrog

From The Wall Street Journal we hear that Caterpillar Takes a Hit on Health Care...

Caterpillar Inc. said Wednesday it will take a $100 million charge to earnings this quarter to reflect additional taxes stemming from newly enacted U.S. health-care legislation.

Caterpillar was joined by John Deere in announcing their increased health care costs....

Farm equipment maker Deere expects after-tax expenses to rise by $150 million this year as a result of the health care reform law President Barack Obama signed this week.

These expenses are not ultimately born by the corporations. Whether it's a corporate tax, an environmental tax, a health car tax, or the cost of raw materials and labor, expenses are ultimately passed on to the consumer as increased prices for goods. Not only does this make the citizens of the US poorer,but In a global economy this makes American Corporations less competitive and when they are less competitive they provide fewer jobs. (See GM, Ford) This is yet another step in the great wind-down of America fostered by the progressive movement.


There is no free lunch nor is there free health care and running it through the gov. only exacerbates the costs. It seems that Obama believes otherwise. He even claimed that business would see a 3000% reduction in costs with the passage of his plan.


Leaving aside the ignorance in stating that something would reduce costs by over 100%, Obama lied. I realize that in a storm dishonesty one lie can seem inconsequential, but a lie is a lie and should be called out as such.

Brad Miller supported this dishonesty, the lie that ObamaCare is a cost savings, with his vote for Obamacare.

North Carolina is better than Brad Miller and his support for ObamaCare is an embarrassment for this state. Brad Miller is an embarrassment for North Carolina.

Oust Brad Miller as NC 13 from office this November.





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Rep. Brad Miller NC-13) -- A grade school economist...

polifrog



From Brad Miller's Facebook account...

“As bad as the foreclosure crisis has been, we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. Unless we get a handle on foreclosures and the decline in home values, nothing else we do to fix the economy is going to work,” Rep.
Miller said.

Our country is currently suffering through the deflation of a real estate bubble. Homes became over valued and now real estate values are now trending down toward their true values.

This is painful for all of us who own real estate but is acutely painful for those who invested at the height of the bubble.

Bill Miller supports a grade school solution.....re-inflate the bubble. We have tried this for over a year now and failed.

---75 Billion was allocated to be used toward a load modification program that has an 87% failure rate according to the inspector general.

---Another program, The Federal Housing Tax Credit, attempted to reinflate the housing bubble with a first time home buyer's cash incentive of 8 grand and in the second iteration of the bill $6500 for repeat buyers. Real estate values continued to fall. Fail.




Now, it appears Brad Miller is pushing to double down on his failed grade school economics and further increase our debt.

Brad Miller is bad for North Carolina. Brad Miller is bad for the United States. Send Brad Miller back to school so the he can grow beyond grade school economics this November.




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Rep. GK Butterfield (NC-1) -- Killing charity with taxes

polifrog

The liberal's war on private charity continues. Governance does not want true and moral charity to compete and sit in contrast to the government's immoral version of charity.

As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.

At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform. ...

The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more — or the vast majority of nonprofit groups — had to file.

As I have argued before, government charity is immoral...

Government taxes are increasingly crowding charity. Dollars that may have gone to The March of Dimes or to The Red Cross or may have been used by one individual to help another are instead absorbed by government. Compare the offices of any charity to the the offices of any Government program and ask yourself if the government's overhead is moral. Compare the way dollars are received by the recipient from the gov. to the way they are received from an individual and ask yourself which is more moral. We are witnessing the death of American charity and liberals call that moral.

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Dick Morris Understands the Tea Party Impact...

polifrog



We have been told repeatedly that the TeaParty is extremist in various ways. Most of those accusations have failed to weather the test of time. One accusation, though, continues to have currency (albeit inflated) -- that the TeaParty is more conservative than the republicans.

Bill Clinton is part of that chorus that the narrative that the TeaParty is extremist. He recently said:

HuffingotonPost
"A lot of their candidates today, they make him [Bush] look like a liberal," Clinton told an enthusiastic crowd.

His assessment is wrong.

The TeaParty falls between the Republican and Democrats in ideology. Their primary concerns are excessive taxation (Taxed Enough Already) and excessive government spending that has lead to deficits that have called into question the strength of our currency.

WSJ
Back in April, the New York Times/CBS did a poll of tea party supporters. When asked, "What should be the goal of the Tea Party movement," 45% said, "Reduce federal government." That is, cut spending. Everything else was in single digits.

These are the people who before there was a TeaParty heled put power in the hands of conservatives in 1994 to fix the spending problem. Those conservatives after a promising start failed them and in disillusionment turned to Obama who promised to reinstate "the spending policies of Bill Cinton" (better defined as the brief success of the 1994 congress who controlled the nation's purse at the time). Within months it was obvious that they had been had and they were pissed. With a nudge from Rick Santelli, the TeaParty was born and with it the Republican Party is being rebooted.

With the recent extreme spending and deficit growth their concerns are of more importance to an ever growing number of people. The debt spending issue unlike many issues is not divisive in the same sense that abortion or Iraq has been. It is an issue that disparate individuals can unite around. As a result profligate debt spending has become a transcendent issue between many conservatives and liberals and with a new home for them being created in the Republican Party the Republican Party has added member at the expense of the Democrat Party.

Dick Morris gets it...

But these days, social issues are in remission and economic/fiscal problems have, understandably, taken center stage. In this environment, purists of the right have a big advantage because nobody doubts the sincerity with which they embrace the goals of limited government, low taxes, and reduced spending. Politicians of all stripes – including most Democrats – vow allegiance to them as does the overwhelming majority of the electorate. In this environment, the distinctions of left and right give way to the difference between sincerity and insincerity, leaving the voters to judge. With candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada or Christine O’Donnell in Delaware or DioGuardia in New York, voters don’t have to guess. They know real conservatives when they see them.

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Rep. Brad Miller Diving Beyond Debt and Morality...

polifrog


... it is a small thing, though, for Brad Miller to pick the wallets of the unborn when he supports the picking of their lives by way of abortion.

-------

It is a no-brainer....free is expensive, while a cost is less so.

This is a result of a duality in human nature, industriousness and laziness. Assuming a basis in law and property rights societies organized such that they harness the industriousness of humanity find wealth, while societies organized such that laziness is coaxed from their citizenry, yield poverty.

Here is why...

---Situation 1
A person spends their own money.
In this case a person sells a piece of their time on earth to earn money. With those dollars that person naturally makes judicious choices in respect to the spending of those dollars. When the whole of society spends judiciously and wisely, the resulting pressure on suppliers forces them to produce what end users want and forces the costs of goods to drop. Thus a cost makes a society efficient, lean, inexpensive, and above all moral.

---Situation 2
A person spends money that person did not earn.
The value of the dollars in such a person's possession are lessened as they are unearned dollars. That person will, by nature, not spend those dollars as judiciously as the individual in situation 1, but they do spend the dollars on those things they need and desire. This lessens the pressure on suppliers to keep costs down and efficiencies high, but, at least, the suppliers cater to the needs of society. We see this in charity. We also see it in the form of welfare.

---Situation 3
A person spends dollars they did not earn and they spend those dollars on others.
This is the worst of the three situations. The value of the dollars to the spender is less than in situation 1, but the impact of these dollars on society are worse than in situation 2. In this case the dollars are not spent by the end user, but rather a middle man whose interests are not interests of the end user, thus the suppliers cater not to the end user, but to the middle man. This skews what is produced by the producers away from the needs of the end user and toward the middleman, but most perniciously, this situation turns the end user into, not just a business cost, but an unproductive business cost to be minimized. Lastly, too much of this situation in combination with situation 2 results is a very inefficient society that leads to impoverishment as the price of goods rise. The citizenry, of course, still pays for the goods through their ever increasing taxes. Breaking the back of capitalism by divorcing the influence of the end user over the producers. In a word...immoral.

Unfortunately, our country is now saddled with a Situation 3 program in ObamaCare. Government will be buying goods for people with other people's money. Somehow Brad Miller and Barak Obama believe immorally restructuring our health-care so that the end user becomes an unproductive business cost is the bees knees.

According to Rep. Brad Miller

It is inexcusable that in a country as prosperous as the United States, so many of our citizens are not able to afford health care...

Brad Miller does not understand that Situation 1 economics created the wealth we enjoy through its moral application of human industriousness. Brad Miller's support for ObamaCare suggests his support for the immorality of Situation 3 economics, increased debt, and national lethargy.

As an immoral situation 3 program, ObamaCare is inherently inefficient and immensely costly to a society, but President Obama had this to say by way of ABC....

President Barack Obama says he did a full court press for a health care system remake because "this country was going to go bankrupt."

How can a president expect anyone to believe such blithering nonsense? He may as well be convincing the citizens of the US that Guam is in danger of capsizing.



Considering that much of Washington's current budget will be funded through debt spending, and the addition of ObamaCare will serve to exacerbate the problem, we should consider a 4th spending situation not mentioned by Milton Friedman. The moral bankruptcy required to lead a nation in this direction is almost beyond comprehension, yet Brad Miller finds a way.

---Situation 4
A person spends dollars (not yet earned and not yet taxed from the unborn) on the currently living (for votes).
This combines the worst of situations 2 and 3 and then removes a representative's accountability to their voter's wallets. There is no accountability when a representative is picking the wallet of the unborn.

I guess it is a small thing, though, for Brad Miller to pick the wallets of the unborn when he supports the picking of their lives by way of abortion.

Brad Miller, a grade school economist.


(a repost)
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Rep. Brad Miller -- Miller's Myopic Perspective on Our Economy Results in Ineffective Leadership...

polifrog


A willful ignorance:

NewsObserver.com

Miller said that if the Republicans regain control in Congress, they would turn control of the country back to Wall Street and banks and allow them to set the rules to satisfy their interests rather than those of the middle class.

"Their idea is to let the country be run from Wall Street," Miller said. "The financial crisis we had two years ago was a direct result of letting them [Wall Street] write their own rules."

What we have is a larger problem than Democrats or Conservatives; we have a Keynesian problem. Although each party points to Keynesian Theory for validation, what they really implement is Bastardized Keynesian Theory. Enticing the American public to take on debt so that they spend and keep the economy humming is Bastardized Keynesian Theory in practice. And loading debt through incentives on private citizens to stimulate the economy, although good for the Federal Balance book, leads to a citizenry unable to weather economic storms.

Brad Miller's statements above bely a willful ignorance of what has brought the US to what is quickly becoming a depression. Conveniently forgotten by Brad Miller is the fact that he and his party have incentivized "affordable homes" or "home ownership" through Fannie and Freddie and pressed interest rates down in an effort to put unaffordable loans in the hands of the people; all-the-while his party was pointing to Keynesian Theory for validation. With cheaper loans and lower interest rates many people spent beyond their means while others found a new ATM machine in their homes that was the equity in their home. With their new debt money in hand, they spent, and according the Keynesian Theory spending stimulates the economy. At least, that is what liberals thought.

Did Conservatives play a part? Yes. In that Brad Miller is correct. Like Brad Miller and his ilk Conservatives pointed to Keynesian Theory when they deregulated the financial industry. For Conservatives it was a way to put more money in people's pockets by making the loan industry more efficient and with more borrowed money in their pockets the people of America spent more. Unfortunately Conservatives had unwittingly set the Democrat debt dogs of incentivized lending loose on the American people.

Brad Miller's Myopic view of our economic malaise renders him unable to effectively lead us to prosperity. Could he ever turn his back on Bastardized Keynesian Theory?

Remember:
Over almost a century Bastardized Keynesian Theory has become the Wmap of public spending policy; it has become the dark energy behind our ever expanding national debt, and is at the heart of our current economic malaise.


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