Barack Obama has the type of mind--orderly, analytical, well-read--that takes naturally to the study of ideas. But he's always been uncomfortable describing himself in ideological terms. Is he a liberal? During the campaign, Obama would mock those who applied the label to him: "There's nothing liberal about wanting to reduce money in politics," he'd say. "There's nothing liberal about wanting to make sure [our soldiers] are treated properly when they come home." Is he a moderate? Certainly not when others have suggested it: He once asked the Democratic Leadership Council to remove him from its list of rising stars.
But, when you look at the sum of Obama's early policies, you begin to see the contours of a distinctive philosophy. Unlike the Progressives or the early New Dealers, Obama has no intention of changing the nature of American capitalism. Not through old-fashioned Jeffersonian means (antitrust) or newer-fangled Hamiltonian techniques (industrial planning). His program doesn't set out to reinvent whole sectors of the economy, not even our broken banking system. And, unlike postwar liberals, he has no zeal for ramping up the regulatory state, aside from tightening the screws on financial services. But, even then, he's resisted key parts of Europe's proposal for greater controls on hedge funds.
Like the New Democrats who ultimately shaped the Clinton administration's agenda, Obama has a deep respect for the market and wants to minimize the state's footprint on it. He has little interest in fixing prices or rationing goods or reversing free-trade agreements. But, while he basically shares the New Democrats' instincts, he rejects their conclusions. Reacting against the overweening statism of their liberal ancestors, many New Democrats came to believe that if government largely got out of the way and let markets work properly, the natural result would be widely shared prosperity. You only need to view the extent of Obama's domestic agenda to know he doesn't agree.
Instead, Obama has set out to synthesize the New Democratic faith in the utility of markets with the Old Democratic emphasis on reducing inequality. In Obama's state, government never supplants the market or stifles its inner workings--the old forms of statism that didn't wash economically, and certainly not politically. But government does aggressively prod markets--by planting incentives, by stirring new competition--to achieve the results he prefers. With health care, for instance, he would make it easier for employees to tote their insurance from job to job, eliminating the disincentive for insurers to invest in preventive care. Or take his bank plan, which helps banks dispose of their toxic assets, reducing uncertainty and making the banks more attractive to private investors--a far less drastic step than nationalization. Rather than force markets to conform to his wishes, he shapes their calculus so they conclude (on their own) that their interests coincide with his wishes.
Obama is hardly the first president to grasp the appeal of manipulating incentives and altering the context in which we make decisions. In the mid-'70s, Charles Schultze, Jimmy Carter's top White House economic adviser, sketched out a version of the conceit in a book called The Public Use of Private Interest. Schultze favored "harnessing the 'base' motive of material self-interest to promote the common good"--say, by taxing rather than outlawing harmful activities. A generation later, the behavioral theorists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, both informal advisers to the Obama campaign, hatched a descendant of this approach. In their own book, Thaler and Sunstein suggested that the government inculcate desirable habits like saving and philanthropy through a series of gentle "nudges."
Given the alternatives--even greater federal involvement, even more federal dollars--such "harnessing" and "nudging" makes enormous political sense. But Obama's version also represents a huge gamble. Many countries have nationalized banks and run health care systems--and we have, at least, a good sense of how those programs would turn out. The Obama approach is largely untested on the scale he proposes, which is far greater than anything Schultze or Thaler and Sunstein imagined. His plans can be dismayingly complex; they often involve heroic assumptions about how people respond to new incentives. There's more than a hint of Ira Magaziner--the much-derided architect of Bill Clinton's 1993 health care plan. But, if it works, Obama will have truly found the Third Way Clinton grasped for a decade ago.
By 1976, Schultze could no longer contain his frustration with the inefficient "command-and-control"-style regulations Democrats had embraced for a decade. He laid out an alternative vision in a series of lectures on the eve of the Carter administration. Under the prevailing approach to worker safety, for example, bureaucrats would hit employers with an endless list of dos and don'ts. "If specific regulations are the only bar to prevent social damages," Schultze wrote, "first it will take 21 pages to deal with ladders, and then even more as time goes on." Schultze advocated a far more elegant alternative: worker-injury taxes and steep workers' comp payouts. By making injuries costly to employers, the government could improve safety without peering onto every factory floor in America.
Schultze helped sell Carter on deregulation, which he brought to the airline and trucking industries. And, though Schultze's broader agenda died with Carter's failed presidency, his ideas lived on in the minds of liberal technocrats like Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis. Then, in 1992, Bill Clinton discovered them through the work of an influential policy guru named David Osborne. Osborne's big idea was "reinventing government" to make it more efficient, more responsive, and altogether more businesslike. In the process, he advocated certain reforms--like public-school choice, tenant ownership of public housing, competition between government and the private sector--that would achieve desired outcomes with a lighter bureaucratic touch. The government should "steer, not row," Osborne proclaimed.
At the time, Clinton was running on a two-pronged strategy of harnessing populist resentments while also redeeming the Democratic Party from its Great Society overreach. Toaccomplish the first goal, Clinton called for strict limits on executive pay and investments in worker retraining. When it came to the second, the Schultze-Osborne model held considerable appeal, and Clinton leaned on it heavily. In response to George H.W. Bush's charge that he was pushing warmed-over tax-and-spend liberalism, Clinton took a page (almost literally) from Osborne's book, telling an audience at the University of Connecticut he wanted to run "a government that steers more than it rows; a government that is a catalyst for action by others; a government that is market-oriented, less bureaucratic, and more entrepreneurial."
After Clinton won, both liberal populists and Osborne-like moderates had reason to believe he would stand with them. Which might have been possible in less constrained times. But the deficits of the early '90s threw the two wings of the party into direct competition. During the transition, Clinton's economic advisers concluded that, if the fiscal status quo persisted, the red ink would top $350 billion by 1997. It sounds almost quaint in our current era of trillion-dollar deficits. But, at the time, the anxiety was palpable. Long-term interest rates had jumped in the fall, and inflation fears were pervasive. Clinton's incoming chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Laura Tyson, warned of a "long-term risk of financial collapse," according to Bob Woodward's The Agenda.
Clinton, like Obama, had spent the transition hashing out his budget priorities and the shape of a stimulus for a recession-weakened economy. He eventually made the exact opposite choices his Democratic successor would, scaling back his beloved middle-class tax cut and domestic spending plans in favor of deficit reduction. The theory behind this decision came straight from Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, vouched for by Clinton's then-economic aide Robert Rubin: The bond market would bid down long-term interest rates in anticipation of lower deficits, which would eventually spur economic growth. Shrinking the deficit would also free up capital for private investment. Still, the move was likely to inflict pain early on, and the realization set Clinton brooding. When Al Gore urged him to be bold like Roosevelt in the 1930s, Clinton snapped: "Roosevelt was trying to help people. Here we help the bond market and we hurt the people who voted us in."
And yet, somehow, Clinton managed to satisfy both--and far sooner than his advisors anticipated. Before long, the economy was creating jobs at a dizzying clip--ten million between 1993 and 1997, another eight million between 1997 and 2000. Rising productivity was driving up wages across the income spectrum. By some measures, poverty was the lowest since the government had begun keeping track. It really did look like shrinking deficits had triggered lower interest rates and unleashed a wave of private investment that was powering the economy to new heights.
It's what came next that darkens the narrative. Amid all the new economy triumphalism, the Clintonites deregulated the telecommunications industry and repealed New Deal-era restrictions on bank consolidation. In 1997, Clinton even signed a bill lowering the capital-gains tax rate, that perennial GOP fetish. Having begun their administration grudgingly appeasing Greenspan, the Clintonites gradually embraced his view that, in many cases, government could do no better than step aside.
In recent months, several of the architects of Clintonomics--Larry Summers, Gene Sperling, Rahm Emanuel--have reassembled to take another crack at creating broad-based prosperity. What's striking is the change in their thinking about how to pull it off.
In fact, the center-left had revised its economic theories while the bubble was still inflating. Beginning in 2004, the data gradually began to undermine the Clintonites' central assumption: that the benefits of growth would accrue to the poor and middle class. Their policies, it turns out, had only temporarily tamped down the income inequality that had been rising since the 1970s. Workers' wages had once tracked productivity growth. Now workers were producing more, but only the wealthy were reaping the rewards; everyone else's income had basically flattened out. The economists Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker, both then at Northwestern, put into words what much of their profession was thinking. "A basic tenet of economic science is that productivity growth is the source of growth in real income per capita," they wrote in 2005. "But our results raise doubts, that we find surprising and even shocking, about the validity of that ancient economic paradigm." Worse still, it was tough to pin these findings on George W. Bush. Although his tax cuts had undoubtedly exacerbated the trend, they couldn't account for what was happening to pre-tax income.
Suddenly the '90s were looking less and less like the dawn of a new economic model and more like a historic anomaly fueled by a once-in-a-lifetime technology boom. And what remained when the boom subsided was insecurity, dislocation, and stagnating standards of living. Globalization was especially bracing. The Clintonites had believed strongly in greasing the flow of goods and capital across borders. Now they wondered if they'd oversold the benefits and understated the costs. Alan Blinder, a former Fed Vice Chairman and White House economic adviser, published a paper warning that between 22 and 29 percent of all U.S. jobs were at risk of being "offshored."
In 2006, Rubin launched a think tank called the Hamilton Project, whose aim was to design a response to the insecurity that didn't threaten free trade and fiscal discipline. Peter Orszag, the former White House aide Rubin hired to run it, christened the approach "warm-hearted but cool-headed." In many respects, the effort represented a new consensus within the party, and the locus classicus of the kumbaya spirit was a New York Times op-ed jointly authored by Rubin and Jared Bernstein of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute. The two men professed their shared desire to see a revived labor moment, one of the few forces they could imagine restoring workers' bargaining power.
During his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Obama sometimes seemed more interested in filleting Clintonism than signing onto the center-left truce. He famously thrashed the politics of triangulation in a Des Moines Jefferson-Jackson Dinner speech that may have saved his campaign. But, looking back over his time in the national spotlight, the periodic sops to populism stand out as the exception. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama endorsed fiscal conservatism and deferred to Rubin's instincts on trade. A dialogue between the two about the loss of jobs at an Illinois Maytag plant ends with Obama nodding in agreement: "It was hard to deny Rubin's basic insight," Obama wrote. "We can try to slow globalization, but we can't stop it."
When the Hamilton Project launched in 2006, Obama attended the group's maiden event and lavished it with praise: "some of the most innovative, thoughtful policy-makers ... the sort of breath of fresh air that I think this town needs." He affirmed this conclusion after winning the election, stocking his administration with the think tank's highest-profile contributors.
He was going to need them. The problem with Clintonism was that it had partly sacrificed the goals of 1960s- and '70s-style liberalism even though it had only meant to exorcise the bogeymen. Hence Obama's challenge: to reclaim progressive goals without the economic self-sabotage of the earlier era.
There are no grand theorists in the Obama orbit, certainly no in-house ideologists. During the campaign, Obama sold himself as a green-eyeshade pragmatist, insisting every one of his proposals was "paid for." But, in fact, there is, if not an ideology, then certainly a sensibility that reigns in Obamaland.
Perhaps the easiest place to see it is in the administration's fondness for behavioral economics, the branch of the dismal science that recognizes that humans aren't utility-maximizing automatons, but flawed creatures who often screw up simple calculations and struggle with self-control. The key behavioral insight is that the way we frame choices matters enormously. Take a classic behavioral example: pensions. In a fully rational world, everyone would enroll in their company's 401(k), which provides a financial incentive to save for retirement. In the real world, we frequently put off enrollment, not wanting to weigh all the confusing options or fill out tedious paperwork. If, on the other hand, our employer enrolled us automatically but allowed us to opt out, most would stick with it. Simply by changing the "default" option from out to in, we improve workers' welfare without limiting their freedom.
Thaler and Sunstein have dubbed this policymaking approach "libertarian paternalism," and it was highly influential within the campaign. (Sunstein, a longtime contributor to The New Republic, is now a top official in Obama's Office of Management and Budget.) For example, in addition to the retirement saving reform, which Obama later wrote into his budget, the campaign also warmed to a proposal called "intelligent assignment." The idea was a response to the fact that seniors enrolled in the Medicare prescription drug program are often overwhelmed by the dozens of plans they have to choose from, sometimes to the point of paralysis. The Obama wonks favored automatically enrolling many of them in the plan that best suited their needs, based on their drug-buying histories, then allowing them to switch if they found one they liked better.
In the grand scheme of things, these "nudges" were minor tweaks designed to elicit more rational behavior. But, in many respects, what the Obama administration has done these last few months is simply scale up the logic of nudging, albeit massively. Not all of Obama's nudges fall out of behavioral economics, per se. Some involve changing incentives to encourage certain activities and discourage others. Some involve fostering competition to trigger innovation. But, as in the behavioral examples, the Obamanauts typically have an outcome they want to promote. And, like the behaviorists, they instinctively recoil from imposing it unilaterally. So, instead, they monkey around with the choices people face, seeking to influence decision-making rather than mandate decisions.
Nowhere has this approach been more visible than the administration's response to the financial crisis. When it comes to the banks, many liberal economists favor seizing insolvent institutions, stripping out their toxic assets, restocking their supply of capital, and then selling them off to new owners. But the prospect of something so heavy-handed offends the administration's sensibilities. Instead, Treasury has chosen to partner with hedge funds and private equity firms to relieve the banks of their toxic assets. The thinking is that bad assets create uncertainty, which repels investors and makes it tough to raise money in the financial markets. By moving the toxic assets off their books, Treasury hopes to make the banks more attractive to investors and, therefore, less likely to need public money.
Or take Obama's housing plan, which gives lenders financial incentives to lower monthly payments for borrowers at risk of default. If Obama wanted to intervene directly, he could dispatch government officials to rewrite mortgages. But this is unnecessary--it's actually in the buyers' and the lenders' interest to agree on new terms because the alternative, foreclosure, is so costly to both. The reason it doesn't happen already is that the original lender is the one who decides whether to modify a loan, even though it typically has long since sold the loan off in pieces to investors. The point of the subsidies is to focus the loan originator's mind--to provide an incentive to do what's in the interest of both borrowers and investors.
The idea of nudging actors in the right direction also animates the administration's solutions to our most pressing social problems. For instance, the biggest reason people overconsume fossil fuels is that the prices they pay for oil, gas, and coal don't reflect their true social costs, which include the toll they inflict on the environment. A cap-and-trade system, by limiting overall carbon emissions (as opposed to emissions for any given company) and charging energy producers for the right to pollute, raises prices and forces consumers to weigh the true cost of their activities. This should not only reduce consumption of fossil fuels, it should make alternative energy more competitive and spur investment in green technologies.
As it happens, Schultze was an early proponent of reducing pollution by pricing harmful emissions. (He preferred an emissions tax, which is analytically similar to cap-and-trade.) Schultze saw this as far more efficient than mandating cleaner technologies, such as the catalytic converters Washington had forced carmakers to install. The difference is that Schultze and Osborne--and their political patrons, Carter and Clinton--were trying to scale back an overgrown government and its bloated bureaucracy without abandoning their liberal goals. Obama, by contrast, seeks to expand the reach of the state after a generation of retreat. That his approach to this avoids heavy-handed market interventions shouldn't disguise his ambitions.
The administration's health care approach nicely illustrates this mentality. To take one example, the United States has underinvested in preventive medicine for years. Even though such care could save hundreds of billions of dollars in expensive treatments and lost productivity, insurers have little financial incentive to subsidize it because Americans frequently change plans when they switch jobs. The benefits would accrue to another insurer.
One way to fix this would be to make it easier for patients to keep the same coverage as they move from job to job, giving the insurer an incentive to subsidizepreventive treatment like regular checkups and cancer screenings. The health care plan Obama talked up on the campaign trail, like many of the Democratic plans currently moving through Congress, does precisely that. (The administration has yet to spell out health care details, but Obama's top wonks are known to favor these innovations, Orszag in particular.)
Another goal is to improve the quality of the health care we receive through competition--as with a so-called "public option," in which government insurance competes with private plans. (In principal, between one-third and one-half of workers could be eligible for the public plan, though the actual number will likely be smaller.) For example, medical research increasingly shows that coordinating treatment--say, having an internist partner with a cardiologist to treat a heart patient--yields better results than when doctors work in isolation. But most private insurers have little incentive to insist on cooperation because quality improvements don't currently affect their bottom line. Competition could change that. If the government improved quality--say, by changing the way it reimburses doctors to induce cooperation--then private insurers would have to either follow suit or lose business.
It's a model that's worked in education. The economist Caroline Hoxby has found that competition from private schools and charter schools tends to improve performance at traditional public schools, which risk losing students if their test scores and graduation rates don't keep pace. Charter schools are also an element of the Obama agenda.
The Obama approach can even work by removing obstacles to behavior we'd like to promote. In a 2003 book called The New Financial Order, which Obama's wonks read Talmudically, Yale economist Robert Shiller suggested that workers were skimping on productivity-enhancing skills because technology and globalization had made such training risky. When a factory job can be outsourced seamlessly, or when an entire domestic industry can disappear within months, acquiring new skills can seem pointless.
Several of Obama's top economic advisers--Summers, his deputy Jason Furman, Orszag, and Sperling--have embraced one of Shiller's central proposals for reducing this disincentive: wage-loss insurance. The idea is that the government would offset the pay cut a worker might take after losing a job in an industry hit hard by global competition or technological change. The factory worker forced to retreat behind a Gap sales counter would no longer see his income fall through the floor, making the training a less risky bet.
The thread that runs through these proposals is a hands-off approach to markets themselves, but a hands-on approach to the incentives and defaults that influence decisions. Obama only broaches direct intervention when he can't elicit the desired outcome through such rejiggering--as with the numerous investments the market won't finance because it can't capture the returns. Consider the scholarly consensus that every dollar of preschool spending on disadvantaged children produces enormous social returns--increasing future productivity and decreasing tendencies toward criminal activity and unplanned parenthood. Alas, there's no way for a private investor to pocket those savings. That's why Obama's stimulus allocated $2 billion to Head Start and Early Head Start. For similar reasons, Obama spent significant sums on high-speed rail, National Science Foundation research grants, and rural broadband access.
As a theory of government, this approach has much to recommend it. It's resolutely liberal in its ends, ambitious in its means, but also respectful of individual freedom. It is, in other words, a government that is activist but distinctly not socialist.
If anything, the lengths to which Obama goes to avoid impinging on the market are almost too great. In the case of the banks, temporary nationalization might be the simplest, most direct approach. By contrast, the Geithner plan, with its Public-Private Investment Program, seems to rely on a set of elaborate assumptions about bank and investor behavior. It presumes banks are willing to sell assets at a loss, that risk-shy investors will be compelled by cheap government financing, that other investors will park their capital in banks once their balance sheets are cleaner. If any of these assumptions fails, the whole effort could fall apart.
The health care plan suffers from a similar Rube Goldberg quality. For example, the "public option" sounds like an elegant way to improve quality by promoting competition. If only it were so simple. The problem is that private insurers have every opportunity to game the system: By skimming off the youngest, healthiest patients and leaving the rest for the government to cover, they drive down their own costs and make the public option look outrageously expensive by comparison. To prevent this, the government would have to restrict the way private insurers woo patients--something that's not impossible, but definitely tricky, given the variety of subtle techniques for screening out the sick. At a certain point, it seems far less complicated to just expand Medicare to everyone. The irony here is hard to miss: In order to keep its hands mostly off the free market, the Obama administration sometimes has to hatch schemes so convoluted they'd make an ambitious social planner blush.
Which raises a final objection: What's so great about private insurers or the people who currently run our banks? We are, after all, talking about a banking industry that triggered a global financial meltdown and which, according to the IMF, may be sitting on trillions in losses to show for it. We're talking about a private health insurance industry that leaves almost one-sixth of the U.S. population without coverage and is a major reason we pay more for health care on average than any other country and get only mediocre results in return.
And yet, Obama has shown little interest in refashioning these industries. Even his proposal for reforming financial market regulation accepted the existence of banks too big to fail, relying instead on an uber-regulator to prevent any single overgrown bank from threatening the financial system. (The alternative would be to use antitrust law to break them into smaller, more manageable pieces.) In light of these industries' track records, Obama's solicitousness might seem puzzling.
Except that it may well work. Private investors do part with their money when uncertainty subsides; competition does tend to improve quality; markets do have a knack for allocating resources, at least when incentives are correctly aligned and the relevant costs are priced in.
Sure, the Obama program makes some big assumptions. Yes, there may be more direct routes to universal health care or a solvent banking system. On the other hand, it's easy to underestimate the challenges of the more statist alternatives. Bank nationalization, for one, is fraught with pitfalls. Anyone who thinks the government would be an efficient manager of large commercial banks clearly wasn't paying attention during the AIG bonus uproar--which, however justified, showed that political realities can trump economic imperatives in a government-run enterprise. In any case, it may be possible to graduate to the more ambitious course if the moderate one fails; it's not obvious that the reverse is true. By first trying to fix the banks with a lighter touch, Obama may strengthen his hand for nationalization if circumstances demand it.
The political point is, in the end, difficult to overstate. Obama has groped toward a form of liberal activism that is eminently saleable in this country--both with the average voter, easily spooked by charges of creeping statism, and the constellation of political interests in Washington. Any economic program that lays out ambitious goals and actually has a chance of achieving them would have much to recommend it on those grounds alone. Better still, it may be the bold, persistent experimentation that the moment demands.
Franklin Foer is the editor of The New Republic. Noam Scheiber is a senior editor of The New Republic.
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COMMENTS (45)
I'm afraid I don't see how this approach is respectful of individual freedom. I don't understand how the Federal government using a citizen's taxes to change his behavior is even marginally consistent with Individual Freedom or the idea of Liberty I was taught way back in Civics class. I thought I had the right to benefit from my labor, and that government could not seize it to give to others as it saw fit, even if government's goal were noble. Here I'm not talking about taxes for Public Goods like roads. Instead I'm referring to money going directly from a worker's pocket into someone else's pocket, thus enriching an auto company, investors buying a bank's toxic assets, or a health car ... view full comment
I'm afraid I don't see how this approach is respectful of individual freedom. I don't understand how the Federal government using a citizen's taxes to change his behavior is even marginally consistent with Individual Freedom or the idea of Liberty I was taught way back in Civics class. I thought I had the right to benefit from my labor, and that government could not seize it to give to others as it saw fit, even if government's goal were noble. Here I'm not talking about taxes for Public Goods like roads. Instead I'm referring to money going directly from a worker's pocket into someone else's pocket, thus enriching an auto company, investors buying a bank's toxic assets, or a health care insurer doing what the government wants; or of using taxes to punish citizens for consuming more energy than the government deems permissible. What theory of government is it that allows the government, even one supported by a majority of citizens, to take the property of another for their own use? It seems far from Freedom, individual or otherwise.
"Like the New Democrats who ultimately shaped the Clinton administration's agenda, Obama has a deep respect for the market and wants to minimize the state's footprint on it."
You must be joking!
"Like the New Democrats who ultimately shaped the Clinton administration's agenda, Obama has a deep respect for the market and wants to minimize the state's footprint on it."
You must be joking!
You might believe this, I don't-that anybody who started out in Acorn and has the types of associations that OBama has. We will see In time that Mr. Obama is about as far left as they come.
You might believe this, I don't-that anybody who started out in Acorn and has the types of associations that OBama has. We will see In time that Mr. Obama is about as far left as they come.
Another Obama puff piece,thank you. This is number #3452.7 . We will file it under Obama is NOT a leftist.
Another Obama puff piece,thank you. This is number #3452.7 . We will file it under Obama is NOT a leftist.
This article is sheer fantasy. Obama isn't changing capitalism? He has fired the CEO of a private corporation after illegally and unconstitutionally handing that company money. He is capping salaries and dictating fiat to Wall Street. He wants a minority of Americans to pay all of the taxes. Obama wants to reduce money in politics? He just spent more money than any other in the history of politics to get elected, eschewing public funding for private donations to do it. He owes more donors than any other President in history. Obama doesn't want to dictate, but incent? He wants nationalized health care, like his nationalized banks and his nationalized auto manufacturers.
Let's see some realism ... view full comment
This article is sheer fantasy. Obama isn't changing capitalism? He has fired the CEO of a private corporation after illegally and unconstitutionally handing that company money. He is capping salaries and dictating fiat to Wall Street. He wants a minority of Americans to pay all of the taxes. Obama wants to reduce money in politics? He just spent more money than any other in the history of politics to get elected, eschewing public funding for private donations to do it. He owes more donors than any other President in history. Obama doesn't want to dictate, but incent? He wants nationalized health care, like his nationalized banks and his nationalized auto manufacturers.
Let's see some realism; at least be on the same planet with the facts.
This reads more like a college paper than a magazine article. It was painful to get through, but I think the main point is that equality for all (income, health care, education, housing, digital TV, and every other aspect of life) is good, government actions to force equaltiy are good, and Obama (a towering intellect who moves in mysterious ways not unlike a diety in some respects) is the one who will nudge us all to the promise land. Wow. Now if Obama would just legalize the demon weed, true Nirvana is within our grasp!
This reads more like a college paper than a magazine article. It was painful to get through, but I think the main point is that equality for all (income, health care, education, housing, digital TV, and every other aspect of life) is good, government actions to force equaltiy are good, and Obama (a towering intellect who moves in mysterious ways not unlike a diety in some respects) is the one who will nudge us all to the promise land. Wow. Now if Obama would just legalize the demon weed, true Nirvana is within our grasp!
I think anyone who has read this article is now dumber for having done so. The mental gymnastics required to make sense of the many contradictory thoughts and mind numbing disconnection between thought is mind boggling
I think anyone who has read this article is now dumber for having done so. The mental gymnastics required to make sense of the many contradictory thoughts and mind numbing disconnection between thought is mind boggling
With 40% of all births out of wedlock and most of these children headed for poverty or worse, it's not surprising to see continuing gaps in income from those who work and pay taxes to those who don't. Combine that with illegal aliens driving down wages for workers......so let's blame hard working, tax paying American's for the problem and tax them more. Wow?!
With 40% of all births out of wedlock and most of these children headed for poverty or worse, it's not surprising to see continuing gaps in income from those who work and pay taxes to those who don't. Combine that with illegal aliens driving down wages for workers......so let's blame hard working, tax paying American's for the problem and tax them more. Wow?!
The Schultz approach is interesting and infinitely preferable to govt regulators trying to micromanage every tiny detail (reminiscent of the Soviet Gosplan). But...like so many things on the Left, they take an interesting idea much, much too far. We've now got sin taxes on alcohol/cigarettes, mandatory crash helmets for 4 yrs olds on tricycles, and a whole host of intrusive, niggling govt laws to MAKE us do what's good for us. Much more in the offing too: taxes on unhealthy foods, restrictions on gas powered lawn mowers, the infamous water per flush toilets, the list is literally endless. The Nanny State grown large...and smug.
The Schultz approach is interesting and infinitely preferable to govt regulators trying to micromanage every tiny detail (reminiscent of the Soviet Gosplan). But...like so many things on the Left, they take an interesting idea much, much too far. We've now got sin taxes on alcohol/cigarettes, mandatory crash helmets for 4 yrs olds on tricycles, and a whole host of intrusive, niggling govt laws to MAKE us do what's good for us. Much more in the offing too: taxes on unhealthy foods, restrictions on gas powered lawn mowers, the infamous water per flush toilets, the list is literally endless. The Nanny State grown large...and smug.
Obama was trained by ACORN. He is a muslim and a radical black nationalist. Bill Ayers wrote his book. He is a socialist. He has raised taxes already by trillions. He is the most polarizing President of all time. Millions of Americans are protesting his huge tax increases, and they have succeeded in turning the tide against this once popular president. He hates veterans, whites, and Americans. Succession is a patriotic form of dissent against a government. Obama will take all of our guns and give them to ACORN activists, who will patrol the streets and round up citizens to send to FEMA camps.
Obama was trained by ACORN. He is a muslim and a radical black nationalist. Bill Ayers wrote his book. He is a socialist. He has raised taxes already by trillions. He is the most polarizing President of all time. Millions of Americans are protesting his huge tax increases, and they have succeeded in turning the tide against this once popular president. He hates veterans, whites, and Americans. Succession is a patriotic form of dissent against a government. Obama will take all of our guns and give them to ACORN activists, who will patrol the streets and round up citizens to send to FEMA camps.
Freedom is a theological, not a political, or social concept. Nor is "property" self-evident and natural. If you want to have the notion of property at all, you will have to accept a state that defines and regulates its terms.
Freedom is a theological, not a political, or social concept. Nor is "property" self-evident and natural. If you want to have the notion of property at all, you will have to accept a state that defines and regulates its terms.
It is a ridiculous idea to imagine that poverty has any connection at all to whether one is born into (I'm assuming you mean) a heterosexual, nuclear home. Wealthy people create wealthy children. Poor people systematically suffer under their thumb. Marriage has nothing to do with it. And, hard working Americans should join with hard working "immigrants" to defend their shared right to a life of dignity.
It is a ridiculous idea to imagine that poverty has any connection at all to whether one is born into (I'm assuming you mean) a heterosexual, nuclear home. Wealthy people create wealthy children. Poor people systematically suffer under their thumb. Marriage has nothing to do with it. And, hard working Americans should join with hard working "immigrants" to defend their shared right to a life of dignity.
The author of this piece needs to look at the real Obama, not the media depiction of Obama. Far from being a deep thinking, analytical, "well-read" personality, Obama is probably the most dogmatic individual ever to become President. He approaches each issue with the same blunt determination of an incompetant running head first into a brick wall. Is there trouble in the world? It must be America's fault; we'd better apologize for every third world phobia, real or imagined, and blame the United States. Is the economy in trouble? It must be America's fault; let's apologize for that and start adopting the feckless fiscal policies preached by an indolent leftwingers in Europe, even as Euro ... view full comment
The author of this piece needs to look at the real Obama, not the media depiction of Obama. Far from being a deep thinking, analytical, "well-read" personality, Obama is probably the most dogmatic individual ever to become President. He approaches each issue with the same blunt determination of an incompetant running head first into a brick wall. Is there trouble in the world? It must be America's fault; we'd better apologize for every third world phobia, real or imagined, and blame the United States. Is the economy in trouble? It must be America's fault; let's apologize for that and start adopting the feckless fiscal policies preached by an indolent leftwingers in Europe, even as Europe begins to back off of the mountain of recklessness that is massive government intervention in the economy. Obama is well read only in the tired dogmas of the crypto-communist haters who blame capitalism and American imperialism first and asks questions never.
If history tells us anything its that there is nothing worse than a zealot, whether they be secular or religious. We've got the secular version of Torquemada in Obama; expect him to be as inflexible in his execution of his policies as the historical figure was in his execution of heretics.
The nudges add up over time to resentment. We all notice it when our spouses become nags, and the government is starting from a much lower level of trust than the spouse.
The bottom line is that many people really *do* want to be able to evaluate their options and then make a choice. A "nudge" might not be as heavy-handed as a regulation, but it is still noticed.
The nudges add up over time to resentment. We all notice it when our spouses become nags, and the government is starting from a much lower level of trust than the spouse.
The bottom line is that many people really *do* want to be able to evaluate their options and then make a choice. A "nudge" might not be as heavy-handed as a regulation, but it is still noticed.
While I believe that the contradictions and flaws in Obama's policy plans, which you begin to explore near the end of the article, need to be analyzed more in depth, I find your article a good beginning at understanding how policy is being shaped within this new administration. So far, the debate over Obama's policy has been quite reactionary, on both sides of the political spectrum. Since I'm fairly young, perhaps this is normal. But in my experience in studying policy, usually a rational, outsider view is taken. One compares current policy formulation with past policy milestones and theories(Such as The Public Use of Private Interest--a standard policy read), and in the process try to ... view full comment
While I believe that the contradictions and flaws in Obama's policy plans, which you begin to explore near the end of the article, need to be analyzed more in depth, I find your article a good beginning at understanding how policy is being shaped within this new administration. So far, the debate over Obama's policy has been quite reactionary, on both sides of the political spectrum. Since I'm fairly young, perhaps this is normal. But in my experience in studying policy, usually a rational, outsider view is taken. One compares current policy formulation with past policy milestones and theories(Such as The Public Use of Private Interest--a standard policy read), and in the process try to figure out how the nuances and unintended consequences of said new policy will affect the populace. Thus far in Obama's presidency, this has been largely absent.
Thank you for starting that ball rolling.
I feel my comments are a bit out of line compared to everyone else's, so...
Obama's a marxist/fascist/socialist/muslim who wants to use taxpayer money to take white people's guns and use them to give free abortions to welfare recipients/married gays/immigrants.
Yes, Obama's "brilliant mind" has accomplished so much in so little time.
His "brilliance", with the help of his trusty teleprompter, has completely destroyed the 225 year old American experiment in free enterprise in just a few months.
Obama's respect for the free market is exactly the same respect that a farmer has for his milk cow.
But actually the golden goose tale would serve as a better analogy.
Yes, Obama's "brilliant mind" has accomplished so much in so little time.
His "brilliance", with the help of his trusty teleprompter, has completely destroyed the 225 year old American experiment in free enterprise in just a few months.
Obama's respect for the free market is exactly the same respect that a farmer has for his milk cow.
But actually the golden goose tale would serve as a better analogy.
I was unaware that email traveled intergalactically. To the author: Hi, I am from earth, where are you from? Here on earth, we live in reality, or at least many of us do. History is repleat with examples of where President Obama's policies, both domestic and foreign, will take us. We are in for a very difficult time.
I was unaware that email traveled intergalactically. To the author: Hi, I am from earth, where are you from? Here on earth, we live in reality, or at least many of us do. History is repleat with examples of where President Obama's policies, both domestic and foreign, will take us. We are in for a very difficult time.
Pliny -
Obama's not apologizing for America. He's apologizing for Bush. If you're too dense to figure that out, then you really need to stop commenting on these boards.
Pliny -
Obama's not apologizing for America. He's apologizing for Bush. If you're too dense to figure that out, then you really need to stop commenting on these boards.
Who let the dogs out?
Who let the dogs out?
this whole notion that somehow inequality can be reduced without changing the nature of american capitalism is laughable at best; and if obama fails to do the latter (intentionally or otherwise), then the best we can hope for is another "bush boom"; where GDP and stock prices soar even as more ppl become poorer. "american capitalism" aims to create inequality as an end to itself. if it is allowed to succeed, it will make its nazi-era precursors seem liberal by comparison, and prolly ruin our economy in the process.
this whole notion that somehow inequality can be reduced without changing the nature of american capitalism is laughable at best; and if obama fails to do the latter (intentionally or otherwise), then the best we can hope for is another "bush boom"; where GDP and stock prices soar even as more ppl become poorer. "american capitalism" aims to create inequality as an end to itself. if it is allowed to succeed, it will make its nazi-era precursors seem liberal by comparison, and prolly ruin our economy in the process.
This article is well researched and commendable for it's depth and insight. It is quite refreshing when historical analysis is applied in measuring current policy in Washington and I'll just say that it was done appropriately here.
This article is well researched and commendable for it's depth and insight. It is quite refreshing when historical analysis is applied in measuring current policy in Washington and I'll just say that it was done appropriately here.
The form of coercion used to get we children to take our medicine seems to looms large in the mind of the author who takes as given the really important question. Does the federal government have the power to decide what is good for us in the first place and if so, on basis do they stake such an audacious claim? Certainly not in our Constitution which limits and enumerates the power granted the feds.
We've let them poke and prod us into the corral until now we no longer remember what freedom feels like and are grateful when they don't poke us quite as hard.
The form of coercion used to get we children to take our medicine seems to looms large in the mind of the author who takes as given the really important question. Does the federal government have the power to decide what is good for us in the first place and if so, on basis do they stake such an audacious claim? Certainly not in our Constitution which limits and enumerates the power granted the feds.
We've let them poke and prod us into the corral until now we no longer remember what freedom feels like and are grateful when they don't poke us quite as hard.
This article is a lie from start to finish. Maobama is an Stalinist from his nose to his toes.
This article is a lie from start to finish. Maobama is an Stalinist from his nose to his toes.
Hopefully we can turn this economy around and actually focus on solving the deeper, systemic issues for why we're in this situation. Obviously bad banking's a good place to start, but there are other issues, like global poverty, that have huge economic and geopolitical ramifications.
The Borgen Project (www.borgenproject.org) has some interesting insight into addressing the issues of global poverty, something we can remedy easily and sustainably.
Some interesting figures to ponder:
$30 billion USD: The annual shortfall to end global poverty.
$550 billion USD: The annual US defense budget.
Hopefully we can turn this economy around and actually focus on solving the deeper, systemic issues for why we're in this situation. Obviously bad banking's a good place to start, but there are other issues, like global poverty, that have huge economic and geopolitical ramifications.
The Borgen Project (www.borgenproject.org) has some interesting insight into addressing the issues of global poverty, something we can remedy easily and sustainably.
Some interesting figures to ponder:
$30 billion USD: The annual shortfall to end global poverty.
$550 billion USD: The annual US defense budget.
It gives me hope that almost all those who have commented above on Foer and Scheiber's fascist manifesto see Obama for what he is: a mooth-talking fraud and an enemy of this country. It is time to start building a massive non-violent resistance movement.
It gives me hope that almost all those who have commented above on Foer and Scheiber's fascist manifesto see Obama for what he is: a mooth-talking fraud and an enemy of this country. It is time to start building a massive non-violent resistance movement.
I get the impression that many posters here read the first three sentences of the article...then turned of Fox News and typed out the next 3 things they heard. I certainly sympathize with poster Watson, who's critique is relevant, logical and respectful. But comments by Pliny, INTJ and others contain very little substance and add nothing to the conversation.
For my part, though I'm resistant to government expansion and disproportionately skewed tax schemes, I'm willing to give this "nudge-ocracy" a chance as an alternative to typical Democratic governance. Though I sympathize with Watson and Anon.'s arguments, I'm willing to accept that most of Obama's ultimate goals (eg: clean energy, aff ... view full comment
I get the impression that many posters here read the first three sentences of the article...then turned of Fox News and typed out the next 3 things they heard. I certainly sympathize with poster Watson, who's critique is relevant, logical and respectful. But comments by Pliny, INTJ and others contain very little substance and add nothing to the conversation.
For my part, though I'm resistant to government expansion and disproportionately skewed tax schemes, I'm willing to give this "nudge-ocracy" a chance as an alternative to typical Democratic governance. Though I sympathize with Watson and Anon.'s arguments, I'm willing to accept that most of Obama's ultimate goals (eg: clean energy, affordable/available health care) are worth the means he's elected to achieve them. And necessary to boot. Likewise, I'm convinced that policies of the Bush administration were not getting us there.
So instead of screaming "free-market!" and "personal liberties!" just for the sake of screaming, I say we watch and see if this works. We certainly don't have a verdict yet. And maybe the time is right for the government to act as a guide. As long as there are no mandates or ultimatums - as long as there's always a way out for anyone who wants - we really can't complain about loss of freedom.
I'm noticing that these boards are overpopulated with haters who can't write a decent sentence or even spell. Does anyone else think that these boards are a failed experiment? Keep bloviating, dittoheads. You're hurtling toward irrelevance.
I'm noticing that these boards are overpopulated with haters who can't write a decent sentence or even spell. Does anyone else think that these boards are a failed experiment? Keep bloviating, dittoheads. You're hurtling toward irrelevance.
How do wealthy people keep poor people under their thumbs? Wealthy families do create jobs for people of all economic standing. Does being wealthy preclude them from also being hard working? My immigrant grandparents, both maternal and paternal, were hard working and created their own life of dignity . . .after being admitted into the country legally.
How do wealthy people keep poor people under their thumbs? Wealthy families do create jobs for people of all economic standing. Does being wealthy preclude them from also being hard working? My immigrant grandparents, both maternal and paternal, were hard working and created their own life of dignity . . .after being admitted into the country legally.
Virginia Centrist,
President Obama has no business carrying American partisan politics into foreign affairs. He needs to be reminded that politics stops at water’s edge. Obama has apologized to Muslim leaders in whose countries women are treated like animals, and to communist dictators who treat all their subjects like animals.
Obama may be popular now. But he should remember how ephemeral the popular favor can be. I would hate to be Obama on trial before the Senate with his recent behavior as Exhibit A for the prosecution.
Virginia Centrist,
President Obama has no business carrying American partisan politics into foreign affairs. He needs to be reminded that politics stops at water’s edge. Obama has apologized to Muslim leaders in whose countries women are treated like animals, and to communist dictators who treat all their subjects like animals.
Obama may be popular now. But he should remember how ephemeral the popular favor can be. I would hate to be Obama on trial before the Senate with his recent behavior as Exhibit A for the prosecution.
Obama is only apologizing for Bush? What? Is Bush now to blame for the Bay of Pigs? Or for the fact that Obama either doesn't know when the Bay of Pigs happened, or Obama doesn't know when he was born, or both?
Obama is only apologizing for Bush? What? Is Bush now to blame for the Bay of Pigs? Or for the fact that Obama either doesn't know when the Bay of Pigs happened, or Obama doesn't know when he was born, or both?
This column is published in the true W.O.R.M. What Obama Really Meant) tradition, trying to massage his message to fit into the ideology of the writer.
Obama didn't have a policy agenda that drove him to run for President, just as he didn't have one when he ran for State or Federal Senate. And Obama didn't even develope an agenda in any office he held, except to get himself elected to a higher office. (Don't bother posting the bills Emil Jones Jr. affixed Obama's name to: Obama didn't do any work on them.)
Obama became the darling of a certain section of the Democratic Party, and Axelrod re-tooled his successful Deval Patrick Hope & Change campaign, and looked in his bag of dirty tricks ... view full comment
This column is published in the true W.O.R.M. What Obama Really Meant) tradition, trying to massage his message to fit into the ideology of the writer.
Obama didn't have a policy agenda that drove him to run for President, just as he didn't have one when he ran for State or Federal Senate. And Obama didn't even develope an agenda in any office he held, except to get himself elected to a higher office. (Don't bother posting the bills Emil Jones Jr. affixed Obama's name to: Obama didn't do any work on them.)
Obama became the darling of a certain section of the Democratic Party, and Axelrod re-tooled his successful Deval Patrick Hope & Change campaign, and looked in his bag of dirty tricks to get Obama elected, including calling all opponents racist. Obama made campaign policy statements, but by the end of the campaign he had contradicted himself on almost every single one of them, so now, like the Bible, anyone can find an Obama quote to back up their position. Unfortunately, every diametrically opposed position can also be backed up by an Obama quote.
In unscripted debates and interviews, Obama did not display any deep understanding of the economy, or healthcare, or regional or national issues, or foreign affairs. Obama's one true talent seems to be as a listener who can make the person he's listening to think he agrees with them. Too bad person 'A' can't stick around to hear the "type of mind" that can just as sympathetically attend to the opposite position of person "B".
Obama's only true expertise is his complete and confident knowledge of the byways and back alleys of the Chicago Machine, and it looks like his true legacy is shaping up to be the installation of the Chicago Way in Washington, installing an even deeper sub-basement of corruption (the highway to which will be built under the auspices of Ray LaHood, Obama's guy), and using American taxpayer monies to pay back his big corporate donors.
And Obama will do as he has always done:'talk the talk'. 'Walk the walk'? - uh, not so much.
I've never read such consitantly stupid comments on an article. But it's nice that they took time from their TEA party to read the opening paragraph and then trash it. Yeah! Taxes are dumb!
I've never read such consitantly stupid comments on an article. But it's nice that they took time from their TEA party to read the opening paragraph and then trash it. Yeah! Taxes are dumb!
Jon Beckly,
It isn't so much that taxes are dumb. What is dumb is that a con man who has no loyalty to this country, its Constitution or its ideals has been elected president.
Freedom loving Americans look upon Barack Hussein Obama with mixture of fear and contempt. But the contempt will overcome the fear. The resistance has begun, and all the liberal sissies squealing in unison won't be able to stop it.
Jon Beckly,
It isn't so much that taxes are dumb. What is dumb is that a con man who has no loyalty to this country, its Constitution or its ideals has been elected president.
Freedom loving Americans look upon Barack Hussein Obama with mixture of fear and contempt. But the contempt will overcome the fear. The resistance has begun, and all the liberal sissies squealing in unison won't be able to stop it.
Watson - the approach is respectful of individual freedom because it preserves choice. There are already incentives and defaults behind the kinds of decisions the article discusses, the whole point is to design them so that markets produce desirable outcomes.
Watson - the approach is respectful of individual freedom because it preserves choice. There are already incentives and defaults behind the kinds of decisions the article discusses, the whole point is to design them so that markets produce desirable outcomes.
I really want conservatives to stop picking quotes from our founding father or other architects from the birth of our nation. You don't know what you're talking about. If you don't like paying taxes. Move to China. I'm sure you'll have a good time there.
I really want conservatives to stop picking quotes from our founding father or other architects from the birth of our nation. You don't know what you're talking about. If you don't like paying taxes. Move to China. I'm sure you'll have a good time there.
Dear fearful, racist, tiny-brained losers: get jobs, get over the fact that you lost, get an education - its not too late, stop blaming your problems on everyone but yourself, for God's sake STOP WHINING, live in reality, turn off the godamned TV, read a book or two, grow up! YOU LOST.
Dear fearful, racist, tiny-brained losers: get jobs, get over the fact that you lost, get an education - its not too late, stop blaming your problems on everyone but yourself, for God's sake STOP WHINING, live in reality, turn off the godamned TV, read a book or two, grow up! YOU LOST.
The New Republic should be moderating these comments and removing the reflexively right-wing ones. I do not want to subscribe to a journal that through lack of diligence provides yet another forum for these repulsive and thoughtless views. That said, I think Foer and Schreiber have provided an interesting interpretation of the Obama administration's views and actions. If F&S are right, I think there will still be great difficulty putting these plans into practice, which will lead tot he real test: will they work as intended, and if not, will Obama and co. re-evaluate in the light of only partial success? On that last score, I am still hopeful; Obama does seem quite flexible in altering e ... view full comment
The New Republic should be moderating these comments and removing the reflexively right-wing ones. I do not want to subscribe to a journal that through lack of diligence provides yet another forum for these repulsive and thoughtless views. That said, I think Foer and Schreiber have provided an interesting interpretation of the Obama administration's views and actions. If F&S are right, I think there will still be great difficulty putting these plans into practice, which will lead tot he real test: will they work as intended, and if not, will Obama and co. re-evaluate in the light of only partial success? On that last score, I am still hopeful; Obama does seem quite flexible in altering efforts to reach larger goals.I hope he will abandon some of his advisors along the way, when their advice is aligned too cozily with now failed pro-Wall Street positions and the like. That will require considerable confidence and intelligence; we are heading very fast into an era unlike that ever seen before, and whether anything at all will re-establish lost equalities remains to be seen.
The thread that runs through these proposals is a hands-off approach to markets themselves, but a hands-on approach to the incentives and defaults that influence decisions. Obama only broaches direct intervention when he can't elicit the desired outcome through such rejiggering--as with the numerous investments the market won't finance because it can't capture the returns.
These two, over-long, sentences sum up this entire article. They are completely disengenuos on their face. This is just happy talk. Why can't the author be intellectually honest here and just say something like: "Obama won't let the government intervene in your life just as long as you're doing exactly what he want ... view full comment
The thread that runs through these proposals is a hands-off approach to markets themselves, but a hands-on approach to the incentives and defaults that influence decisions. Obama only broaches direct intervention when he can't elicit the desired outcome through such rejiggering--as with the numerous investments the market won't finance because it can't capture the returns.
These two, over-long, sentences sum up this entire article. They are completely disengenuos on their face. This is just happy talk. Why can't the author be intellectually honest here and just say something like: "Obama won't let the government intervene in your life just as long as you're doing exactly what he wants you to do."
Freedom is not a political term?? Property must be defined by the State?? Move back to Russia, please. The foundation of our government is that freedoms are individual, property rights are individual, and the power of the state must be severely limited. Those principals are what has made this the most powerful nation on earth, nothing else. Democrats, and sometimes republicans forget that at our peril.
Freedom is not a political term?? Property must be defined by the State?? Move back to Russia, please. The foundation of our government is that freedoms are individual, property rights are individual, and the power of the state must be severely limited. Those principals are what has made this the most powerful nation on earth, nothing else. Democrats, and sometimes republicans forget that at our peril.
It is a ridiculous idea to imagine that poverty has any connection at all to whether one is born into (I'm assuming you mean) a heterosexual, nuclear home. Wealthy people create wealthy children. Poor people systematically suffer under their thumb. Marriage has nothing to do with it. And, hard working Americans should join with hard working "immigrants" to defend their shared right to a life of dignity.
I guess this is the core mantra of the left. The reality is, most wealth is created in a single generation, i.e., rich people for the most part did not inherit it. Poor people suffer under the thumb of the rish?? How? Most jobs are created by small businesses with less than 20 employees. Corpo ... view full comment
It is a ridiculous idea to imagine that poverty has any connection at all to whether one is born into (I'm assuming you mean) a heterosexual, nuclear home. Wealthy people create wealthy children. Poor people systematically suffer under their thumb. Marriage has nothing to do with it. And, hard working Americans should join with hard working "immigrants" to defend their shared right to a life of dignity.
I guess this is the core mantra of the left. The reality is, most wealth is created in a single generation, i.e., rich people for the most part did not inherit it. Poor people suffer under the thumb of the rish?? How? Most jobs are created by small businesses with less than 20 employees. Corporate jobs don't go to the wealthy, but the best educated. Te big surprise for the left is their illusion that wealth is a zero sum game. They somehow think if one person has money, it came from someone else's pocket. That is patently false. Wealth comes from ingenuity, or productivity gains, not theft. Stable two parent households, of any sexual orientation, tend to raise well adjusted children who learn self discepline, the value of education, and the necessity of delayed gratification. The poor are usually people with poor conflict management skills, the inability to delay gratification, sometimes an affinity for the false escapes of drugs, alcohol or sex, and an inability to teach their children a durable value system. I completely agree we can "save" most of the "poor" kids that have instlled values, but many are doomed to follow in their parents footsteps. The idea that one class, or even color of people in this country somehow hold back everyone else or actually take away their opportunities or wealth is rediculous on it's face. I live in Texas and am surrounded by hispanic and asian immigrants, some very recent arrivals with no language skills. While some will remain in the barrio or poor neighborhoods for a second generation, most will not. The asians work several jobs, live in extended families, save, sometimes for decades, and establish profitable businesses. Some hispanic immigrants are low level workers, many are self employed contractors. They have desirable family values and value education for their children. By the second generation, they are mostly middle class. The asians value education so highly their kids dominate the top ten per cent of most high school classes, and go on to attain advanced degrees and six figure incomes. What ALL of these people value about this country is our core value entitled equal opportunity. None of them would profess a belief in the importance of equality of outcome. That failed idea results not in exceptionalism, but mass mediocraty. Lowering the income of the wealthy doesn't increase the wealth of the rest, it simply lowers the overall total wealth. If you have ten stores in a shopping center, one or more of them will identify what their customers want the most and make lots of money. Forcing those to limit hours, selection, price, or products "for the good of all" won't result in all the stores making more, it simply results in the total sales for being less. Forcing employers to pay more doesn't result in everybody making more, because the businesses figure out a way to produce the same or more with fewer employees. Those few might make more, but many are simply let go, again resulting in lower total wealth. The top 10% in income in the US, those with incomes higher than $92,000, pay 60% of ALL income taxes. In the city of New York, 40,000 "rich" people pay 52% of the income taxes for a city of 8 million. If you "level the playing field", who's going to pay the bills?? Who will have the money to hire you? When was the last time you were hired by a poor person? Would you keep working for a company that was losing money, and your paycheck bounced? Capitalism is harsh, but not near as harsh as a world without it. Governments create NO WEALTH. Only privste businesses create wealth. Wake up people!
Thanks for the laugh :)
Thanks for the laugh :)
wow...the obama derangement syndrome thing is strooooong. They may only be 20 or 25% of the population. Certainly not enough to win an election. But more than enough to start an insurgency.
"Let us make 2, 3, many Timothy McVeighs!"
Shudder.
wow...the obama derangement syndrome thing is strooooong. They may only be 20 or 25% of the population. Certainly not enough to win an election. But more than enough to start an insurgency.
"Let us make 2, 3, many Timothy McVeighs!"
Shudder.
I think it's time to moderate comments here...
I think it's time to moderate comments here...
Now this is a good joke, republicans who had supported a regime that tortured prinsoners of war complaining about the deprivation of "individual liberties" and "freedoms" when the new government regulates the economy.
Society is not obliged to suffer individual wealth if that threatens the economic structure and the welfare of the rest of the nation. You don't believe it? Watch us.
Now this is a good joke, republicans who had supported a regime that tortured prinsoners of war complaining about the deprivation of "individual liberties" and "freedoms" when the new government regulates the economy.
Society is not obliged to suffer individual wealth if that threatens the economic structure and the welfare of the rest of the nation. You don't believe it? Watch us.
Once in a great while I turn my attention from TNR's blogs and tiptoe over to one of the main articles. Then I read the comments. Ooo baby, makes me wanna put on some cammies, call up one of my favorite incall escorts ("incall escort"? oxymoron? maybe I'm overthinking this), and propose a round of "Captured Terrorist Hottie Just Asking for Enhanced Interrogation." I can hear her now: "Whip me, beat me, make me renounce wealth redistribution!"
Once in a great while I turn my attention from TNR's blogs and tiptoe over to one of the main articles. Then I read the comments. Ooo baby, makes me wanna put on some cammies, call up one of my favorite incall escorts ("incall escort"? oxymoron? maybe I'm overthinking this), and propose a round of "Captured Terrorist Hottie Just Asking for Enhanced Interrogation." I can hear her now: "Whip me, beat me, make me renounce wealth redistribution!"