It’s not just the 21st century they want to turn the clock back on — health-care reform, global warming and the financial regulations passed in the wake of the recent financial crises and accounting scandals.Note well, the labeling of all these ideas as kooky without any attempt to explain exactly why they are kooky. You see, for interventionists, government intervention is self-evident and doesn't need to be logically justified. Now, that's kooky.
These folks are actually talking about repealing the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, created in 1970s.
They’re talking about abolishing Medicare and Medicaid, which passed in the 1960s, and Social Security, created in the 1930s.
They reject as thoroughly discredited all of Keynesian economics, including the efficacy of fiscal stimulus, preferring the budget-balancing economic policies that turned the 1929 stock market crash into the Great Depression.
They also reject the efficacy of monetary stimulus to fight recession, and give the strong impression they wouldn’t mind abolishing the Federal Reserve and putting the country back on the gold standard...
One of them is even talking about repealing the 16th and 17th amendments to the Constitution, allowing for a federal income tax and the direct election of senators — landmarks of the Progressive Era.
What’s next — repeal of quantum physics?
Not every candidate embraces every one of these kooky ideas. But what’s striking is that when Rick Perry stands up and declares that “Keynesian policy and Keynesian theory is now done,” not one candidate is willing to speak up for the most important economic thinker of the 20th century.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
WaPo Hates the Influence of Ron Paul on the Presidential Race
There is just no other way to interpret these comments of WaPo columnist Steve Pearlstein. Though he can't bear to mention Ron Paul's name, Pearlstein is mostly talking about Dr Paul :
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"Kooky" is a word regularly used to decribe Ron Paul by a local pseudo-conservative (neocon) talk show host. Of course, he reads out of the usual neocon script on many issues. But lately I've heard him tip his hat to RP because the GOP Prez debates have put the good doctor's ideas front and central. I think the influence is having an effect even for a parttime Limbaugh stand-in like this local talker. The WaPo article is revealing - much like the MSM ignorance of RP - in that it outlines the bounds of the mainstream. An admission that all those 'other folks' just prefer Orwell's big brother than liberty after all.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of associating a law of nature (quantum physics) with the positive laws of corrupt politicians. Real tricky maneuver right there.
ReplyDeleteYahoooooooo, let the crying continue from the MSM. Dr. (Teflon)Paul goes on and on and on. The truth hurts as we all know, and the MSM knows they cannot trip up the principled gentleman. Nothing sticks to him, one of the few saints produced by the pagan establishment.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Dr. Paul this Sunday.
You don't have to look very hard to see the failings of Keynesian economics. How many austrians have to smack down keynesians before every one realizes this?
ReplyDeleteAccording to his thinking, everything thing done in the 1900's has to be for the best. Those dummies in te past couldn't have been as smart. Oh and because you are a conservative it means you hate clean air and water. Yes, I only breathe and drink filth.
I feel I could write all day to address this tidbit of idiocy.
The left is composed of out-of-control ignoramouses who wouldn't have a vote if it weren't for the US revolution. Gary North mentioned this: taxes were lower under the British aristocracy. Hans Hermann Hoppe has showed that as electorates in the 19th century got more democratic, the size of the governments expanded. Democracies naturally and routintely end early by bankrupting themselves when the people figure out that they can vote themselves money. We can't afford democracy!
ReplyDeleteLOL @ Pearlstein.The Big Government party is over buddy..let the cryin' begin. LOL !
ReplyDeleteActually most of quantum physics is tosh as well, I side with the Objectivists on that! Schrödinger's cat experiment comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteIn a strange way, I welcome explicit statements of support for both Keynesian stimulus and even the rantings of the MMTers. The Keynesians have been successful in part because they have been coy and ambiguous. Average people are oblivious to the fact that their so-called “experts” in white lab coats actually believe that diluting the money supply and having the government accumulate unpayable debt are done purposefully. To the extent average people ever actually hear such statements, the importance either does not register, they think it’s so absurd that it cannot be true or else they think that the process must be much more complicated than that and over their heads. In the very least, a major goal of the Ron Paul campaign should simply be to get the rabble to understand that inflation is a purposeful activity of the federal government and not some mysterious force of nature which causes price to inexplicably rise over time. Once (if) they understand that, they should more easily understand the concepts purposeful theft of purchasing power and, hopefully, malinvestment. Without understanding what causes inflation, they won’t understand anything.
ReplyDelete@Rick Without having ever read Hoppe, I pointed out on a Libertarian mailing list how every major expansion in suffrage was followed by massive increases in government. I received a private email from an activist who told me that even if what I proffered were true, I should keep quiet lest the Libertarian Party be accused of racism/sexism/etc. For me, that was one more nail in the LP's coffin.
ReplyDeleteAs I had stated in my email, it wasn't about race or sex, but about the disconnect between perceived payers and benefactors -- i.e. more people to vote for free lunch.
Pearlstein vs Ronald Ernest Paul
ReplyDelete