Levi's 'Go Forth'

At Astute Bloggers, "LEVI'S GO FORTH: SELLING JEANS BY PROMOTING POLYTHEISM AND ANARCHISM?"

Can We Credibly Compare the Current Economic Crisis to the Great Depression?

It's long been cliché to remark that our current recession is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Indeed, President Obama, while a candidate and once in office, incessantly harped about how today's economy is the worst since the 1930s. While I think most people realize the magnitude of the current crisis --- my best comparison is to 1990-91, when I can literally recall people fleeing California's recession by the truckload --- it strains reason to endlessly hammer away at the Great Depression analogy. And that's why, as sympathetic as I am to the historical scale of our dislocation, I'm still not convinced by arguments like Joe Nocera's, at New York Times, "The 1930s Sure Sound Familiar." Nocera discusses Since Yesterday, a history of the 1930s by Frederick Lewis Allen. After a bunch of nostalgic whimpering, Nocera gets down to what's really bugging him:

What dominates “Since Yesterday” — as it must dominate any history of the Great Depression — is the government’s responses to the crisis. Herbert Hoover was “leery of any direct governmental offensive against the Depression,” writes Allen. “So he stood aside and waited for the healing process to assert itself, as according to the hallowed principles of laissez-faire economics it should.” Sticking to his convictions, Hoover allowed the country to sink deeper and deeper into Depression, becoming in the process one of its victims — “along with the traditional economic theories of which he was the obstinate and tragic spokesman.”

Then came Roosevelt, untethered to any economic theory and willing to try anything to get people back to work. Allen describes the alphabet soup of agencies he created, the deficits he generated, the regulations he enacted. The economy, which bottomed out in 1932, steadied and then began to grow until, by 1937, it appeared that the Great Depression had ended.

Allen then takes us through the terrible days of late 1937, when the economy collapsed again. “Roosevelt’s Depression,” businessmen called it, blaming it on a business tax they particularly loathed. In fact, Allen makes the convincing case that the real problem was that Roosevelt had tried to do something business wanted: balance the budget. Shrinking government spending dried up demand. And not until the following spring, when he reversed course and decided to “go in for heavy spending again,” did conditions begin to improve.

The tragedy of Washington today, as the supercommittee begins its task of finding $1.2 trillion in cuts, is that nobody seems to remember the lessons of “Since Yesterday” — and most other books about the Great Depression.

When I think back to the 1930s, I don't necessarily pine for the return of Franklin Roosevelt. Economists differ on the downturn of 1937, and from my recollection it wasn't until the economic mobilization of World War II that the American economy really recovered --- and hence it was war mobilization, and not Democrat industrial policies, that finally brought an end to the era. That said, I'm not an economist. But there was a good piece from Bradley Schiller back shortly after Obama took office, "Obama's Rhetoric Is the Real 'Catastrophe'." What's interesting is the incomparability between the scale of crisis then to today:

President Barack Obama has turned fearmongering into an art form. He has repeatedly raised the specter of another Great Depression...

This fearmongering may be good politics, but it is bad history and bad economics. It is bad history because our current economic woes don't come close to those of the 1930s. At worst, a comparison to the 1981-82 recession might be appropriate. Consider the job losses that Mr. Obama always cites. In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That's a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost -- fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82.

This was reflected in unemployment rates. The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. That's more than three percentage points below the 1982 peak (10.8%) and not even a third of the peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can't equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.

It goes on like that (here). And Schiller argues that the administration's economic fearmongering is actually dangerous, in how it perverts economic expectations and consumer confidence.

But then again, things are bad, right? Just not as bad as the 1930s? Well, I'm interested in a different comparison being made, that the U.S. might be entering into a long period of sustained high unemployment, and that the American economy could be resembling the European economies after the oil shocks of the 1970s. The major industrial states like France and Germany became accustomed to long-term (secular) unemployment rates of often 10 percent or more. Thinking about that, David Leonhardt, at New York Times, gives us another reason not to compare the current era to the 1930. The economy of the Great Depression was in fact one of the most technologically productive ever, "The Depression: If Only Things Were That Good." The counter-intuitive economic innovation of the day, combined with the drastic shedding of dead weight bloat and over-appreciation in the economy, laid the basis for the sustained recovery by the 1940s:

UNDERNEATH the misery of the Great Depression, the United States economy was quietly making enormous strides during the 1930s. Television and nylon stockings were invented. Refrigerators and washing machines turned into mass-market products. Railroads became faster and roads smoother and wider. As the economic historian Alexander J. Field has said, the 1930s constituted “the most technologically progressive decade of the century.”

Economists often distinguish between cyclical trends and secular trends — which is to say, between short-term fluctuations and long-term changes in the basic structure of the economy. No decade points to the difference quite like the 1930s: cyclically, the worst decade of the 20th century, and yet, secularly, one of the best.

It would clearly be nice if we could take some comfort from this bit of history. If anything, though, the lesson of the 1930s may be the opposite one. The most worrisome aspect about our current slump is that it combines obvious short-term problems — from the financial crisis — with less obvious long-term problems. Those long-term problems include a decade-long slowdown in new-business formation, the stagnation of educational gains and the rapid growth of industries with mixed blessings, including finance and health care.

Together, these problems raise the possibility that the United States is not merely suffering through a normal, if severe, downturn. Instead, it may have entered a phase in which high unemployment is the norm.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that job growth was mediocre in September and that unemployment remained at 9.1 percent. In a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, forecasters said the rate was not likely to fall below 7 percent until at least 2015. After that, they predicted, it would rarely fall below 6 percent, even in good times.

Not so long ago, 6 percent was considered a disappointingly high unemployment rate. From 1995 to 2007, the jobless rate exceeded 6 percent for only a single five-month period in 2003 — and it never topped 7 percent.

“We’ve got a double-whammy effect,” says John C. Haltiwanger, an economics professor at the University of Maryland. The cyclical crisis has come on top of the secular one, and the two are now feeding off each other.

In the most likely case, the United States has fallen into a period somewhat similar to the one that Europe has endured for parts of the last generation; it is rich but struggling. A high unemployment rate will feed fears of national decline. The political scene may be tumultuous, as it already is. Many people will find themselves shut out of the work force.

And if this is so, the solution is not to become more like the European Union nations. That is, the Obama administration's massive debt and deficit policies are more likely to turn the U.S. into France, or heaven forbid, Greece. And thus, back to Joseph Nocera pining for the governmental activism of the 1930s. He's wrong in his comparisons, and he's wrong in his proposals. We need to invigorate the private sector and productive individualism and innovation. We need to see 1000s of Steve Jobs bloom. I'm not so pessimistic that we won't see that happen. I expect the U.S. to have another decade of booming growth similar to the 1990s. We just need to let markets work and get the hell out of the way.

RELATED: At The Hill, "Obama wants $35 billion for teachers, first-responders first" (via Memeorandum). Sounds laudable, but more of the same, unfortunately.

From Incendiary Insight: 'Capitalism — The Hated Enemy of the Children of the West'

An amazing essay (via Instapundit):

At this moment, I'm sitting in my home and watching television. Typing this I'm using a Dell XPS laptop. Outside, I can see my swimming pool with moonlight reflecting off its shimmering surface. If you are reading this, you're also using a computer. The air conditioning turned on, and my refrigerator is running. Tomorrow, I'll shower, get in my car, and go to work. I'll head home around 5, exercise, and watch a movie with the family.

If I were living in any non-Western country, I would not have a laptop, a television, a refrigerator, air conditioning, or a car. If I did have any of those, they'd be in shockingly poor shape and probably break by year's end. I'd earn a paltry sum that could barely keep my family from starving. I'd not even have a 'social safety net' because so little of the country has wealth to give anyway.

Read it all...

Steve Jobs and the Beauty of Capitalism

From Kevin Williamson, at National Review, "A Jobs Agenda" (via Serr8d's Cutting Edge).

There's no takeaway block quote. Just go read it all.

Steven Crowder on the Free Enterprise System

Via Theo Spark:

Man's Rights

Well, with all the recent talk about "Atlas Shrugged," I've been skimming back over some of her writings. The novel is almost 1,100 pages, and I have no plans to re-read it (although I'm considering The Fountainhead for another round). I have been reading some of Rand's essays, for example, "Man's Rights", which is featured in her book, The Virtue of Selfishness. A sample:

The principle of man’s individual rights represented the extension of morality into the social system—as a limitation on the power of the state, as man’s protection against the brute force of the collective, as the subordination of might to right. The United States was the first moral society in history.

All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself. The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary coexistence of individuals. All previous systems had held that man’s life belongs to society, that society can dispose of him in any way it pleases, and that any freedom he enjoys is his only by favor, by the permission of society, which may be revoked at any time. The United States held that man’s life is his by right (which means: by moral principle and by his nature), that a right is the property of an individual, that society as such has no rights, and that the only moral purpose of a government is the protection of individual rights.

A “right” is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context. There is only one fundamental right (all the others are its consequences or corollaries): a man’s right to his own life. Life is a process of self- sustaining and self-generated action; the right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action-which means: the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life. (Such is the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)

The concept of a “right” pertains only to action—specifically, to freedom of action. It means freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men.

More at the link.

'Atlas Shrugged': New Film Takes Sorta Randian Road to Big Screen

I'm surprised.

A decent and fair report on the front page of today's Los Angeles Times, "'Atlas Shrugged' finally comes to the screen, albeit in chunks."

It has taken businessman John Aglialoro nearly 20 years to realize his ambition of making a movie out of "Atlas Shrugged," the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand that has sold more than 7 million copies and has as passionate a following among many political conservatives and libertarians as "Twilight" has among teen girls.

But the version of the book coming to theaters Friday is decidedly independent, low-cost and even makeshift. Shot for a modest $10 million by a first-time director with a cast of little-known actors, "Atlas Shrugged: Part I," the first in an expected trilogy, will play on about 300 screens in 80 markets. It's being marketed with the help of conservative media and "tea party" organizing groups and put into theaters by a small, Salt Lake City-based booking service.

The fact that one of the 20th century's most influential books is coming to movie screens in such a fashion is — depending on whom you ask — a reflection of liberal Hollywood's aversion to Rand's ideas, a symptom of Aglialoro's rigid adherence to them, or a testament to the challenges inherent in adapting the complex tome.

Aglialoro ultimately made a movie that hews more to Rand's ideology than the conventions of cinematic storytelling, at the risk that far fewer people will see it. Taking a page from the independent blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ," however, he is paying for his own theater bookings and marketing his film to an audience Hollywood often overlooks.

Keep reading at the link. The piece notes that the producers "showed footage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington..." Also mentioned there is Freedomworks, where bloggers at the CPAC blog-bash saw a preview screening of the film's trailers.

The movie comes out next Friday, April 15th. There's a couple of local tea parties that day, so I might see it on Saturday --- and then I'll update with my own review.

Borders Bankruptcy

Or near-bankruptcy.

See LAT, "Is Borders heading for its final chapter?"

I used to think about how much the big-box bookstores improved my quality of life. When I was in graduate school (UCSB) I used hang out at Borders on State Street all the time. Especially memorable were the times I met Dr. Michael Gordon, my dissertation advisor, for bread and coffee. It was a lot of fun. Of course I should add that I'm not necessarily crying about this. Both Barnes and Noble and Borders savaged local booksellers, so among a lot of Bohemians (including my mom), they won few friends. Still, there's something in the convenience of always being able to find a good quality bookstore at the neighborhood mall. Strange, in any case. Markets working, and all that.

More at Pat Austin's, "The End of Dead Tree Books Is Nigh."

HazZzMat on Warren Buffett

"Simpleton":

You know, I've about had it up to here with the MSM worship of Warren Buffett. With all due respect to an arch-capitalist who's made a considerable pile with his investment philosophy, Buffett is yet another lifelong Democrat who blindly supports creeping socialism without a clue as to how destructive it is. He's sort of like George Soros in sheep's clothing.

Via Memeorandum.

Gold! It's Never Too Late to Secure Your Future With ... Gold!

I often see this commerical multiple times a day during the business week. And now here comes NYT with a background report. I guess it's not just G. Gordon Liddy types either, "Uncertainty Restores Glitter to an Old Refuge, Gold":

It is the resurgent passion of the doomsday crowd, a bet that everything will go wrong. No matter what has you worried, they say, the answer is gold.

Inflation, deflation, government borrowing or the plunging euro — you name it — the specter of these concerns has set off a dash to gold, driving the precious metal to new highs and illustrating how fears of economic turmoil have moved from the fringe to the mainstream.

And gold bugs, often dismissed as crackpots who hoard gold bars in the basement, are finally having their day.

“I just think you’re in a world where a lot of chickens are coming home to roost,” said John Hathaway, manager of the Tocqueville Gold fund. “Gold is an escape hatch.”

The most visible new gold enthusiasts range from the Fox News commentator Glenn Beck on the right to the financier George Soros on the left, with even some sober-minded Wall Street types developing a case of gold fever. While their language may differ, they share a fundamental view that the age-old refuge of gold is relevant again, especially as other assets like stocks and national currencies show signs of weakness.

Now, individual investors are following their example around the world. The United States Mint is running short of gold coins, and the South African mint increased Krugerrand production by 50 percent late last month, to its highest level in 25 years, on brisk European demand.

The debt crisis in Europe and the ensuing drop in the value of the euro are the most recent catalysts for gold’s spike last week to $1,254 an ounce, a record before adjusting for inflation, but the deeper concern is that even in the United States, government borrowing is unsustainable and the day of reckoning is at hand. Sales of American Eagle one-ounce gold coins tripled in May from the month before.

If governments print more money to pay off their debts, the logic goes, inflation will destroy the value of the dollar, the euro and other paper currencies — thus enhancing the value of gold. What is more, with tax increases unlikely and with Europe on the brink, the unthinkable — a sovereign debt default or the collapse of the credit system — has suddenly become thinkable.

RTWT.

The piece discusses Goldline, which advertises on Glenn Beck's show. That was too much for Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, it turns out, "Rep. Anthony Weiner targets Glenn Beck and Goldline International."

Also, "GLENN BECK HITS BACK AT REP. ANTHONY WEINER OVER GOLD SCAM CLAIM."

Recovering the Case for Capitalism

It's a sentiment I've seen more and more periodically, that we need to defend capitalism. Sounds kind of strange. And it's not just a loss of confidence in markets amid the current recession. It's a broader critique from all over on the existentialism of the current order. On that, Yuval Levin's essay, at National Affairs, is a modern classic. See, "Recovering the Case for Capitalism." At the introduction, Levin prefaces things with a discussion of Adam Smith's moral economy, and it's a nice refresher. But later there's a couple passages really worth pondering, one on the crisis of capitalism in shifting the moral focus away from those most in need of our attention and resources, and second on the element of social capital needed to sustain markets as the essential mover of human freedom. The whole thing's worth printing and saving, but I like these sections:

There is not today, and perhaps there never has been, a serious economic critique of the fundamental tenets of capitalism. There are only moral critiques. Even those opponents of capitalism who proposed alternative systems — like the socialists and communists of centuries past — generally offered moral systems, and not genuine economic theories.

The moral critiques of capitalism have tended to fall into two categories. One, popular with those socialists and communists as well as with many less hostile liberal critics, is that capitalism is unjust to the poor. This meant at first that capitalism degraded the condition of the poor: Some early critics of capitalism contended that the circumstances of workers, especially in manufacturing occupations, were worse than anything the poor had ever experienced before the advent of free-market economics and the Industrial Revolution. But no such case could be sustained today. It is true that inequality persists, of course, but the standard of living of the poor has risen dramatically under capitalism, and the potential for escaping poverty is nowhere greater than in capitalist economies. So today, the focus of such critics is on inequality itself. The condition of the poor, they say, generally does not improve as swiftly as that of the rich, so that the gap between the wealthiest and poorest is expanding — to the detriment of social cohesion and basic justice. There is some truth to this, at least sometimes, but it only amounts to a moral indictment of capitalism if we believe that an equality of conditions is the essence of justice. Otherwise it would be foolish to reject the greatest source of material progress for the poor in human history on the grounds that it allows others to progress even faster. Moreover, it is far from clear that some systemic feature of the market economy holds back the poor. Today in America, the causes of persistent poverty have far more to do with culture than with economic injustice.

But that very point brings us to the second and more serious moral critique of capitalism: that it empties social life of any higher meaning, and so leaves society morally bankrupt even as it grows materially wealthy. Is capitalism in fact just a means of replacing material poverty with spiritual poverty? Is the market a money-making machine that burns social capital for its fuel, leaving in its wake a society of opulent nihilists? ....

Adam Smith expected ... that the market would discipline society and set bounds on our appetites. But as it turns out, our capitalist age is generally not an age of discipline. Far from it: Our society in most respects is a study in unbounded appetite. Our chief public-health problem is obesity. Our foremost social pathologies result from an absence of sexual restraint and personal responsibility. Our popular culture much of the time is a diabolical mix of Babylonian decadence and Philistine vulgarity. And our public life is a gluttonous feast upon the flesh of the future — we use more than we need, spend more than we have, and borrow more than we can pay. For all of our immense wealth, we somehow manage to live far beyond our means. In fact, it is almost fair to say that we lack for nothing except discipline. But as Adam Smith could tell us, discipline above all is what we require to be free. This is no small problem for the case for capitalism.

So what happened? In part, Adam Smith surely understated — and perhaps underestimated — the challenges of sustaining moral norms amid economic dynamism. His expectations rested on an assumption of what to us seems like exceptional social and moral consensus, but what to him was the reality of British life in the late 18th century. The loss of such consensus, brought about in no small part by our capitalist economy itself, is a defining fact of American life in the 21st century. And the challenge of sustaining our way of life in light of that loss is the defining problem of our political economy.

Also, from the conclusion:

Clearly, the case for capitalism requires us to roll back policies that have distorted the market's ability to produce this wealth and cultivate these virtues. The American welfare state needs to be dramatically trimmed and reformed — aimed at helping the needy become more independent rather than making the middle class less so. The cozy relations between government and big business must be rolled back as well, lest the system cease to serve the common consumer, and so lose his allegiance. Friends of capitalism have grown increasingly alert to this danger in the wake of the recent economic crisis, and are beginning to formulate the arguments and develop the means to resist it. The distinction between "pro-market" and "pro-business" will be an important part of the case for capitalism in the years to come, and American history offers useful examples of how it can be drawn responsibly.

Properly understood, the case for capitalism is not a case for license or for laissez faire. It is a case for national wealth as a moral good; for the interest of the mass of consumers as the guide of policy; for clear and uniform rules of competition imposed upon all; for letting markets set prices, letting buyers make choices, and letting producers experiment, innovate, and make what they think they can sell — all while protecting consumers and punishing abuses. It is a case for avoiding concentrations of power, for keeping business and government separate, and for letting those who can meet their own needs do so. It is a case for humility about our ability to know, and therefore about our capacity to do ....

Our purpose is to protect and strengthen our way of life, to stand up for a social and economic system that has lifted billions out of poverty and vastly improved our world in countless ways, and to avert a careless slide toward social-democratic melancholy and decline. This general purpose, of course, has to take form in specific instances and choices, and exactly how the broad conceptual argument for capitalism should be translated into policy is always a matter of case-by-case prudence. But that does not mean that we can do without the broader argument — the argument first framed by Adam Smith, and refined by two centuries of theory and practice, especially in our country. It is an argument for individual freedom amid moral order, and for prosperity sustained by sympathy and discipline. It is an odd modern hybrid: a conservative case for the liberal society. As such, it is also an integral piece of the case for America.

RELATED: At Rasmussen, "60% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism" (via Memeorandum).

Why Capitalism Wins

From Doc Zero:

Socialism always seems to have a marketing advantage over capitalism. This is not surprising, because socialism is a deeply romantic notion: a dangerously seductive dream of prosperity as a function of justice, where the wise redistribute the profits of the wicked to care for the needy. Socialism’s promises are so alluring that questions about its poor performance are dismissed as rude. It is a childish philosophy, and like any errant child, it receives a limitless supply of forgiveness and second chances.

Capitalism rarely enjoys such wonderful advertising. To the academic, it seems vulgar, while the politician flatters his constituents by promising they can rise above crass materialism… by placing material concerns in the hands of politicians. In truth, capitalism is the chisel free people use to carve their dreams from the stone of history. Without it, we are “free” only to beg for the bounty of the State, and complain when it fails to deliver. Freedom is only a theory, when it lacks a practical means of expression. Freedom of speech without property leaves us doodling in the sand, instead of carving our will into stone.

We should be more forceful in declaring our love for capitalism. It should be a mature love, born of respect for its power and virtue, not a starry-eyed romance. For example, we should be thankful that capitalism is merciless. That might seem like a strange thing to celebrate, but it’s the reason we haven’t been subsidizing buggy-whip and vacuum tube production for decades. Left to its own devices, the free market doesn’t waste energy propping up the production of unwanted goods for sentimental reasons… or because the manufacturers of those goods are politically powerful enough to extract subsidies from the public.

We should also be grateful that capitalism is heartless. Sentimentality is expensive, especially when other people are taxed to pay for it. The lawful governance of a vast nation requires cold logic, and iron obedience to Constitutional discipline. The unsustainable programs bleeding us into fiscal ruin were sold to voters with emotional appeals. The architects of the entitlement state do not use children as props because they want you to think carefully about their proposals.

Emotion is a terrible basis for allocating resources. The essential tool for addressing disaster and poverty is wealth, which is created by transactions between citizens. Money is the tool that makes our time valuable to one another. A rich nation can afford to provide for the unfortunate, and develop goods that make everyone’s life better. The “heartless” efficiency of capitalism is the best way to coordinate our skills and resources, producing the fountain of value that nourishes us all.

RTWT.

America's Allies Ask 'Where's Obama?' Leader of Free World Snubs Berlin Wall Celebration

From the Christian Science Monitor, "At Berlin Wall Fall Celebration, Old Allies Ask Where is Obama?":

The celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall started off well enough – former President George H.W. Bush, ex-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, and former West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl gathered in front of nearly 2,000 dignitaries in Berlin last week to celebrate their role in bringing about the end of the Cold War.

It was a happy affair, with Mr. Bush and Mr. Gorbachev exchanging laughs and smiles as they recalled Nov. 9, 1989, a day that all agreed advanced world freedom and ended the looming threat of the cold war.

But in the week since, as leaders have gathered here to mark the Mauerfall anniversary, agreement has been tough to come by and fractures between allies have shown themselves in what has been billed as an event to celebrate unity. One of these signs was the absence of US President Barack Obama as other heads of state gathered underneath the Brandenburg Gate Monday night to make a symbolic journey from the old East Berlin to West Berlin. They group then toppled a wall of dominoes along the path of the Berlin Wall.

But President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is his place, infuriating many Germans, as the US president is beloved here. Some in Berlin asked if this snub indicated that the alliance between the US and Germans is strained.

Actually, Pamela Geller puts things in perspective, "Tear Down This Presidency!":

On the twentieth anniversary of one of freedom's monumental moments, one of America's finest moments, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Obama is MIA.

Huh?

Yes, the mirror man who has never met a camera or teleprompter he didn't fall head of heels in love with is NOT at the anniversary of the Fall of the Wall.

He sent a video. I kid you not.

He went to a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Alliance of Civilizations (instead of the graves of the glorious dead on the anniversary of Normandy), toured Turkey's mosques, bowed to the wahhabi Saudi king, coasted to Copenhagen to whore for his cronies in Chicago (Olympics) -- but he can't go to Germany for this stunning historical triumph of free men.

Sarkozy, Merkel, all the greats are in attendance.

He must have had a late basketball game with Reggie. All kidding aside, Obama could not stand the idea of the exaltation of Reagan. He is so small and so petty. He is the anti-Reagan.

Well, the good news is that 58 percent of Americans expect a Republican to be elected in 2012!

Next President Likely To Be Republican, Poll Finds

Something I've been arguing around here for some time now. From Rasmussen, "58% Say Next President Likely To Be Republican" (via Memeorandum):

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of likely voters say it is at least somewhat likely the next president of the United States will be a Republican, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

The number has been trending in this direction since Democrat Barack Obama took office in January and is up 14 points since then.

Thirty-one percent (31%) of voters see it as Very Likely that the next president will be a Republican.

And what explains this? Well, this administration's unprecedented culture of corruption, for one. But the larger explanation is the public's repudiation of the left's attempted socialist takeover under Barack Obama. See, Mark Steyn's seminal essay, "The Europeanizaion of America."

Also, previously, "Socialism Schmocialism? Let's Get Real About Marxism in America." Plus, Gateway Pundit, "58% of Voters Believe Next President Will Be Republican."

GM's Opel Decision Stokes Anger in Germany

Publisher's Note: It is my pleasure once again to publish a guest essay from a reader, Bill Dawson. A U.S. citizen, Bill has lived in Austria since 2000. He blogs regularly about German History rather than contemporary politics, but he has his finger on the pulse of the German-language media and offers an interesting perspective from across the pond.

**********

A story which involves a U.S. company but is just barely on the news radar in the United States is by far the biggest story in Germany today, November 5, 2009.

The Germans have gone wild with anger after hearing the news that General Motors has decided to keep Opel, a European subsidiary, rather than sell it as previously planned. The original idea was that GM would sell Opel to Canadian firm Magna International and Russia's Sberbank. The Germans -- and by that I mean the government and the gigantic trade union IG Metall -- apparently had much more faith that the Magna/Sberba combo would better protect Germany's Opel jobs. The Detroit News article (linked above) suggests otherwise by indicating that GM's plan to cut 20% of the Opel workforce is similar to what Magna had planned. Honestly, the details of the respective plans do not interest me, so I've not dug deep and tried to compare them.

What does always interest me is the predictable reactions that many Germans have when businesses in the United States affect people (read: "workers") in Germany. Journalists, politicians and labor leaders dust off their cowboy boot cliches and whine about the heartlessness of capitalism.

"Capitalism has apparently learned nothing," asserts angry IG Metall chief Berthold Huber (my emphasis, link is to German content). That statement appears in an interview; neither Huber nor the interviewer thought it necessary to explain what exactly was meant. If GM makes a decision based on its own interests, then this shows that "Capitalism has apparently learned nothing." I guess from Huber's perspective this means that Capitalism has failed to learn that if it does not protect jobs at all costs then... what? I can only assume he means that the lesson of the current worldwide financial crisis is that jobs must be protected at all costs, even if they don't make economic sense to the companies who provide those jobs. And Capitalism has failed to learn that lesson. Right.

"This behavior of General Motors shows the ugly face of Turbo-Capitalism," laments the Minister President (head of the government) of the German state North Rhine Westphalia (German link, my emphasis). He is a member of the Christian Democrats, the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, which is traditionally considered center-right and is often accused by the Left of being too pro-business.

"Smoking Colts" (German link) is the title Thomas Wels chose for his very short opinion piece on the website of the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. "The Americans have bargained just like they always do: up to the last minute, and with a Colt on the table." (My emphasis.) The disappointed Wels accuses GM of acting "purely in self-interest".

"Hatred for the Grave-Diggers of Detroit" (German link) is how the Sueddeutsche Zeitung titled their article about the anti-GM demonstrations that occurred today (11/5/2009) in the town of Ruesselsheim. Though the link is to a German article, you might enjoy clicking on it and then scrolling down until you see the slideshow consisting of six photos of the demonstration. Click that first photo and I'll take you through the photos with some translation where necessary. Hopefully they haven't changed up the photos by the time you read this.

1. The yellow shirt simply says, "We are Opel". Note that all labor demonstrations in Germany are dominated by the red flags that always make me think of Leninism.
2. This photo needs no commentary!
3. The sign on the lady's hat reads "Freedom for the slaves of GM."
4. The finger sign reads "Keep your hands off our Opel!" (The German is literally "finger away" rather than "hands off.")
5. I wasn't joking when I mentioned cowboy boots earlier. I think the message here is clear: the cowboy boot of American capitalism is crushing Opel.
6. The sign that is flipping off GM says "Get out!"
7. Uninteresting.
8. The sign on the upper left reads "Don't let Opel die" and on the upper right "Yes we Can -- better without GM."

Now all of you have been thinking throughout this whole article, "Are they nuts? GM is not 'capitalism.' It's socialism!" All German commentators whom I've come across so far are conveniently ignoring this fact. A few have mentioned that the U.S. government under world darling President Barack Obama owns the largest chunk of GM, but, funnily enough, they haven't elaborated on that: it doesn't fit the message.

Obama's Economic Stimulus Sham

This is a jobless recovery, so the White House/Media Industrial Complex obviously has incentive to invent good news. (CNN's on the case, "Stimulus Creates 640,000 Jobs", via.) Obama/Biden economic advisor Jared Bernstein has a report, "New Report Shows Recovery Act Creating Jobs Throughout the Nation."

But recall yesterday's piece at Breitbart, "Stimulus Jobs Overstated by Thousands."

The government has overstated by thousands the number of jobs it has created or saved with federal contracts under the president's $787 billion recovery program, according to an Associated Press review of data released in the program's first progress report.

The discrepancy raises questions about the reliability of a key benchmark the administration uses to gauge the success of the stimulus. The errors could be magnified Friday when a much larger round of reports is released. It is expected to show hundreds of thousands of jobs repairing public housing, building schools, repaving highways and keeping teachers on local payrolls.

See also, Michelle Malkin, "The Stimulus Jobs Inflation Index."

Ann Althouse on 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

More anectodal evidence of the popularity of radical ideologies in the U.S. From Ann Althouse, "Some Thoughts on Seeing 'Capitalism: A Love Story'":

Moore shamelessly and repeatedly advocated the violent overthrow of the economic system. It was somewhat humorously or moderately presented — such as through the mouth of a cranky old man who was being evicted from his home — but it came across that Moore wants a revolution. He kept advising the workers — and the evictees — of the world to unite and shake off their chains.

Yeah, and of course Moore's a classic left-wing hypocrite. See Michelle Malkin, "Capitalism-Basher Used Non-Union Labor for Film." See also, "Millionaire Filmmaker Michael Moore: ‘Capitalism Did Nothing For Me’."

How Left-Elitists See Town Hall Citizens: 'Ill-Informed, Know Nothings Holding the Country Hostage With Total Irrationality'

Here's Ed Morrissey, writing during last year's election, on the long tradition of elite snobbery on the Democratic-left:

Elitism is a sense that the hoi polloi are simply incapable of governing themselves, let alone a nation, and that a small group of “experts” have to take control of everything they do. That goes far beyond mere matters of state. Elitists see people getting more obese and believe that government has to intervene to remove food choices from individuals, as one rather timely example, as in New York City. They believe that removing personal choices will keep people from making bad decisions, because they — in all their wisdom — will make the right choices for them.

This describes perfectly the policy direction of the Democratic Party ... That’s why the charge of elitism sticks so well to Democratic candidates in national elections. Their humble origins are immaterial to the concept of elitism. Candidates who want to grow the federal government in order to increase its nanny-state power are by definition elitists, because they believe individuals cannot make choices for themselves.

Well, we've been noticing the left's ubiquitous snobbery during the debates over health policy and the town hall meetings. Digby really captures it in her attempted takedown of Rush Limbaugh as a "gasbag":

If you wonder why people are so unbelievably misinformed in this country here's one good place to look ...

People listen to this kind of drivel all day long on talk radio and Fox News. Why should anyone be surprised that they think the government is going to be sending Death Agents to nursing homes to kill old people? ... They are being indoctrinated in idiocy by radical demagogues and for some reason everybody persists in thinking there is no harm in it.

These fatuous gasbags empower the teabaggers and swift boaters and I think we can see the result --- ill-informed, know nothings holding the country hostage with total irrationality.

Plus, here's Steve Benen on Representative Barney Frank's obnoxious response to a kooky LaRouche-Democrat attending his town hall:

There was no defensiveness, and no anger, just someone who knows what he's talking about making someone who doesn't look like a fool.

Matt Yglesias raised a terrific point: "Voters don't have a great deal of knowledge about the issues, or a great deal of interest in acquiring knowledge about the issues. But they are human beings, equipped with our species' excellent ability to read the emotional states of other human beings. If they see a politician acting defensive about his 'side' in an argument, they conclude that this critics are probably on to something. If they see a politicians acting outraged and hitting back fearlessly, they're likely to conclude that he has nothing to apologize for."

Quite right. A low-information voter, with only a passing familiarity with current events, might catch an exchange like this one. Which of the two people in this clip -- the crazy person or Barney Frank -- comes across as credible?

I realize that Frank has the benefit of serving in a safe Democratic seat, in a highly-educated area. Vulnerable Democratic lawmakers may not feel comfortable openly ridiculing random lunatics who ask stupid questions like Frank did.

But the point is, reform advocates can show this kind of confidence and certainty that nonsensical beliefs are nonsensical beliefs.

It's not so much that the woman at the video was a lunatic or not (the fact that LaRouche voters are Democrats doesn't seem to bother leftists searching for something, anything, to help rescue Obama's falling fortures on socialized medicine). No, it's the totally condescending approach Democratic-lefitsts take to those of differing opinions. Benen's citing Matthew Yglesias, who I unveiled a couple of weeks ago as a "true revolutionary socialist expropriator."

Given the nature and stakes of the debate, I don't expect to convince my political opponents that they're elitist in the mold of Vladimir Lenin. Having said that, folks should at least keep an open mind in reading John Goodman's essay on the everyday citizens participating in the recent ObamaCare demonstrations, "Explaining the Town-Hall Protests":

These are a very diverse group of people. Some of them are part of a 40,000-person network of former Obama supporters who are experiencing buyer's remorse. Others are part of various disease networks, including patients concerned about the future of cancer care. There are networks of senior citizens worried about cuts in Medicare and the possible closing of their private Medicare insurance plans. There are Christian conservatives worried about taxpayer-funded abortions and subsidies for euthanasia. And there are an enormous number of people who are simply concerned about their health care.

For the most part, these individuals are not funded or organized by anybody. They really are grass roots. Sure, there may be a few top-down "astroturf" groups and some special-interest groups that are secretly gleeful. But there is no way the kind of spontaneous outpouring we've witnessed could be bought or organized by anyone.

Why are they so angry? The reasons are manifold, but the single biggest reason is the arrogance of our elected officials in Washington. Think about it. For the past seven months a small group of politicians has been meeting behind-closed-doors with powerful special interests to decide whether you will be able to keep your current insurance, where you will be directed to get new insurance and at what price, what fines you and your employer will have to pay if you don't conform, and how they're going to get your doctor to change the way he or she practices medicine. In the process, they never asked you what you thought about anything. If you are not mad about this, odds are you don't understand the situation.

Remember, according to a Fox News poll conducted last month, 84% of Americans rate the quality of their insurance as "excellent" or "good." When they voted for Mr. Obama for president, they thought "universal care" meant helping some unfortunate Americans obtain insurance they cannot otherwise afford. Not once did candidate Obama say he was going to make changes that affected them and their health care. In fact, he promised the opposite.

Read the whole thing at the link.

And if leftists still aren't convinced, I'll simply recommend that folks read some of the latest polling results, for example, "Faith in Obama Drops As Reform Fears Rise: Health-Care Effort Is Major Factor, Poll Finds." And it's not a bunch of "ill-informed, know-nothing" Limbaugh ditto-heads either. See Greg Sargent, "Major Factor In Obama’s WaPo Poll Slide: Drop Among Dems, Liberals." (Via Memeorandum.)

'Taking Rich People’s Money and Devoting it to Public Purposes'

Remember how leftists refuse to be labeled as "socialists"? The preferred terminology nowadays is "progressive," but underneath you''ll find the same hardline radicals who advocate revolutionary change to sweep away the capitialist order.

And note this from Ayn Rand's essay, "The Monument Builders":

The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights; under socialism, the right to property (which is the right of use and disposal) is vested in 'society as a whole', i.e., in the collective, with production and distribution controlled by the state, i.e., by the government.

So it's really interesting to see how transparently socialist is Matthew Yglesias' post today, "If Only We Had Some Means of Taking Rich People’s Money and Devoting it to Public Purposes." Here's the key passage, in the context of "banking reform":

... we actually have a well-established method of taking market distributions of income and trying to transmogrify it into a more just, useful, and welfare-enhancing deployment of social resources—taxes and public services. The world of finance has been the main driver behind the growth in inequality at the extreme high end, and establishing additional tax brackets with higher rates would help lean against that trend. So would something like the Obama administration’s proposal to curb the extent to which high-income individuals can shelter income from taxes through itemized deductions.

It strikes me as ultimately unlikely that the political process will be able to micromanage high finance in a way that strikes people as meeting the claims of justice.

And Yglesias' last point about "justice" is the dead giveaway. Here's this, on what "social justice" means for today's radical left:

The quest for social justice, or a just and equitable society, is perhaps the foremost stated objective of the modern Left ....

The unbroken line from The Communist Manifesto to its contemporary adherents is the notion that economic inequality is the monstrous injustice of the capitalist system, which must be replaced by an ideal of "social justice" - a "classless" society created by the elimination of all differences in wealth and "power." Thus "social justice" in its contemporary sense has come to mean a rejection of capitalism and of each man's economic freedom - be he a manufacturer or a consumer -- to do as he wishes with his own intellectual, physical, and material resources; this freedom is the origin of income disparity under capitalism.

There you have it: Matthew Yglesias unpacked as the true revolutionary socialist expropriator that he is. Take that, Edge of the American West (see, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Yglesias and Socialists and Communists").

Are You Getting 60,000 Unique Visitors Every Month?

Well, are you?

The New York Times reports on Colleen Padilla in Philadelphia. She runs a blog portal for the stay-at-home demographic, Classy Mommy. Some sample posts? "Cozy Coupe Car," and "Boogie Wipes":

Boogie Wipes, created to solve the problem of wiping the crusty & runny noses of toddlers and preschoolers, are truly an innovative product invented by two Moms. Last week I had the privilege to interview Boogie Wipes Founders, Mindee and Julie to learn more about their biz. Truly, these one of a kind saline wipes are designed to encourage kids to deal with the nose wipe instead of running in the other direction. Moms love them and sales of these buggers have taken off as Moms struggle with boogies on a daily basis.

Hey, as a husband of a professional mom, and a fully-involved father who just this morning took his youngest son to the summer school bus-stop (looking on wistfully as the bus rolled off, not unlike Tom Hanks at the conclusion of Forrest Gump), I have to take exception: There's a market for sexist blogging?

Calling Judith Warner! Ms. Padilla's not getting with the program!

And not only that, as the Times points out, Ms. Padilla's blog "attracts 60,000 unique visitors every month."

That's pretty good, but not that good. Give me an Instalanche or two, plus some regular FMRA action, and I'm good 40,000 "unique visitors" a month, if not more. I've had some good traffic days in the last month or two, but while meeting similar numbers as Ms. Padilla, in not getting the bling! Apparenlty, Ms. Padilla's getting ...

... free items from companies eager to promote their products to her readers.

Marketing companies are keen to get their products into the hands of so-called influencers who have loyal online followings because the opinions of such consumers help products stand out amid the clutter, particularly in social media.

To be fair, I have gotten a few desk copies of books I might read and write about as a blogger, but I could use some kids stuff too! Man, what postmodern dad can do without complimentary Boogie Wipes these days!

It's hard out there for a neocon!

Of course, it helps to learn how to blog." After that, it can't hurt to get in good with the "'The Rule 5 Community."