Thursday, August 26, 2010

Maddow really sticks it to Chris Christie

The hilarious and stunning Rachel Maddow demonstrates her intelligent and clever brand of wit in this segment on Governor Chris Christie. Try not to fall out of your chair from laughter!

But seriously, here is Chris Christie commenting on the stupidity of denying the state of NJ an educational grant based on a simple clerical error. His best line was his comment on the bureaucracy in Washingon: "If you are a normal thinking, breathing, human being, you pickup the phone! ... Does anyone in Washington have a lick of common sense? Pick up the phone and ask us for the number!"



By the way, is this how rationing works?

Friday, August 20, 2010

CNBC's Joe Kernan asks "how can a tax cut be paid for"

This morning on CNBC's Squawk Box, David Gregory suggested that Republicans were going to have some difficulty because many are "still clinging to the idea of tax cuts even if they are not paid for."

In this comment, Gregory is repeating a talking point that attempts to equate a tax cut with spending, as if allowing a person to keep 75% of their income instead of only 70% is somehow a government program. And Kernan politely calls him on it:
Republicans would say, what do you mean you have to pay for tax cuts? Was the Clinton level written in stone and anything beyond that we've already spent? So we need to find money to pay for taking less of the money that's already yours? Do we start at 100% taxation and anything below that we need to somehow pay for? That doesn't make sense.
David Gregory looking completely perplexed, as if he has never heard an argument likes this (which he hasn't), replies:
I don't know what part doesn't make sense. If you are concerned about deficits...and you were a proponent of the tax cuts, and then got to a point where they needed to be paid for, I don't know how you square those two things.
Kernan:
Well, why don't you spend less? So what you are saying is that the spending is already done, and you were planning on having more tax revenue from the higher rates from the 90s before they were cut...?
It was a little clumsy, but the point Kernan is making is an important one. Allowing someone to keep more of his own income is not a government program that needs to be paid for. It's always and everywhere government spending, either current spending or previous spending, that causes deficits and thus "needs to be paid for".

And his point about starting at "100% taxation" is even more important. Saying that a tax cut needs to be paid for is almost like suggesting that all income and wealth produced in an economy is by default property of the government. And when the government allows people to keep some of it, it is in effect a government program that needs to be "paid for". Kernan points out that this is completely backwards, and I think most of us would agree.

You can watch the video here.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Where can I send money to get this ad on TV?

The Republican Study Committee has hit it out of the park with this ad.



My favorite line is "The more their plans fail, the more the planners plan."

Thanks for the pointer from Claire over at Ricochet.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Actually, it's that they are being lazy

No, I don't actually believe that Chris Matthews is "not very smart" or that Joe Scarborough is "dumb". It's more that they are being lazy. It's as if they make no effort whatsoever to understand the arguments that conservatives are making. (And for Joe Scarborough, that is quite a feat since he is a self described conservative).

Speaking of being lazy, this dispute between Paul Krugman and Paul Ryan has been entertaining. Paul Ryan commenting on Paul Krugman:
“I realize he’s a columnist and not a journalist, yet he could have easily tried to have verified his claims with a phone call or an email. Instead he went with his confusion and chose to impugn motives, which strikes me as a very intellectually lazy exercise or style.”

Monday, August 9, 2010

Joe Scarborough continues to get dumber

This morning while interviewing super super smart Ivy League guy Jeffrey Sachs, Scarborough said that Democrats are trying to rebuild an economic bubble through government spending, while Republicans are trying to rebuild the bubble with low taxes that will "get more money out there and pump up consumerism".

What? OK, maybe he is technically right. There probably are some Republicans out there that think tax cuts are about giving people more money to spend. But as a self described "small government conservative", he should know that the conservative argument for low taxes has nothing to do with "getting money out there".

In addition to the moral argument for low taxes (private property and keeping the fruits of one's labor), the economic argument for keeping taxes low is about minimizing disincentives to work, save and invest.

How does he not know that? Scarborough has been working at MSNBC way too long.

[Update]
Karl Rove made his debut guest hosting the Rush Limbaugh program today and talked about the importance of making the moral argument against tax hikes:
We live in a country that values individual enterprise, personal responsibility and individual freedom. The more the government takes out of your pocket the less we have of all three of those things. - Karl Rove

The recession as a "recalculation"

Forget the money multipler, C+I+G, and monetary velocity. According to Arnold Kling, economic activity is not about spending, it's about "sustainable patterns of specialization and trade." He explains:
Here is a simple pattern of specialization and trade: Suppose that all of us eat grain and fruit, which we could grow for ourselves. If some of us have land better for fruit trees, while others have land better for growing grain, then specialization and trading can pay off. It is inefficient to waste good tree land by growing grain on it and to waste good grain land by planting trees on it. Instead, economic activity gives all of us more to eat
So if economic activity is not about spending, then a recession is not about a lack of spending. So what is this recession really about?
The economy was suddenly caught in an unsustainable pattern of production, which involved too much housing construction in the “sand states” of Florida, Nevada, and California as well as too much financial activity related to mortgages and mortgage securities. The market needs to undertake a recalculation in order to deploy workers in a new, sustainable pattern of specialization and trade.... The process involves gradual, decentralized trial and error. Firms need to be launched by entrepreneurs, who will make risky investments in employees. The failure rate will be high, but eventually the successes will have a cumulative effect that brings about more economic activity.
And the policy implications?
If anything, it seems likely that government support for unsustainable patterns of production would probably make the market's recalculation problem more confusing.....On the whole, the best way to help the process of market recalculation and the creation of sustainable patterns of specialization and trade may be for government to get out of the way.
Please, read the whole thing here.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Allen West on the NYC mosque

I was getting all squishy on the issue of the Ground Zero mosque, but Lt. Col. Allen West has put me straight:
The individuals who hijacked two airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center towers shouted, “Allahu Akhbar”. The individuals who will attend the mosque would offer up like praise of “Allahu Akhbar”. The individuals who detonate suicide vests, behead school teachers and headmasters, throw acid on little girls trying to attend school, and fire rockets into Israel shout, “Allahu Akhbar”.

I do not support the building of a mosque at ground zero. It is not about Muslims, it is about a totalitarian, theocratic-political ideology with an imperialistic objective which I will not allow to claim victory in my Country.
Read the post over at NRO here.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Law of unintended consequences

Remember this debate about Spirit Airlines' decision to start charging for carry-on bags, and Charles Schumer's effort to outlaw the practice? Here is what I said:
Spirit Airlines is proposing a fee for carry on baggage, and says that their ticket price will be reduced by about the same amount as the fee. This makes perfect sense - a traveler who walks on with no carry on luggage probably costs much less than someone who tries to jam a large suitcase into an overhead bin. I imagine the extra cost from additional boarding time alone, over the course of thousands of flights, is astronomical.
Well, the policy went into effect on August 1st, and I flew on Spirit on July 29th, three days before the policy was instituted, and flew home on Spirit Airlines yesterday, August 4th. This was what happened on the way home after the new policy was instituted:





I can't believe I hadn't thought of this, but when you require passengers to pay for carry on bags, the number of people that have to go through the baggage check-in line increases substantially. The wait time was an hour. To fix this problem, the airline is going to have to hire more people for check in, which will increase their costs. Otherwise, they are going to be losing customers not because of any carry-on baggage fee, but because of long wait times. No, I can't prove that this was the reason for the lines. Maybe it was because it was August, which is the busy season for the Jersey Shore, but I have to believe that this was at least a contributing factor, and another example of the law of unintended consequences.

Maybe Chuck Schumer won't have anything to worry about after all. Maybe the marketplace will work it's magic and this will not become the industry norm.