Monthly Archives: August 2012

You Can’t Build This, Either

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Paul H Rubin, Professor of Economics at Emory University, had some thoughts on President Obama’s “You didn’t build that” oratory.  After giving Obama the benefit of the doubt and allowing that he really meant, without denigrating the accomplishments of entrepreneurs and other businessmen, that government needed to help private enterprise with infrastructure, Professor Rubin added a few items of interest in the infrastructure milieu.

  • the Obama administration, in its first three years, adopted 106 major regulations that cost over $100 million, compared with 28 such regulations in the Bush the Younger administration, and it has 144 more in the pipeline.

Of more immediate impact, with regard to the infrastructure of roads and bridges, the administration’s attitude toward other necessary components of our transportation infrastructure is clear.  It has

  • refused to allow a private company to build the Keystone XL pipeline
  • reduced permits for offshore drilling
  • slow-walked permits for drilling on Federal land
  • increased EPA regulation of pollutants, well past the point of diminishing returns, yet
  • committed to spend billions on California’s riderless bullet train to nowhere

Concerning another area of necessary infrastructure, access to capital, there’re these:

  • regulations needed to implement Dodd–Frank are not even being written, negatively impacting business’ ability to reasonably predict their fiscal future—so some won’t lend, and others won’t borrow.
  • increased minimum wage discourages hiring entry-level workers, or older workers into low-value jobs
  • Obamacare increases uncertainty regarding future labor health-related costs

And so on.  RTWT.

Some Thoughts on the Campaign

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There are some campaign emails going out from the Democratic Party’s side, and the subtext in their texts is interesting.  This one is from Al “The Internet—I built that” Gore:

From: Al Gore [mailto:dccc@dccc.org]
Sent: Monday, July 30, 2012 10:14 AM
To: Hinderaker, John H.
Subject: disaster

John –

The last thing we want is the Republican Party — a party that’s been hijacked by an extremist fringe — to win the White House and tighten its grip on Congress.

That would spell disaster for our economy and our environment.

That’s why I’m helping the DCCC raise the $2 million they need to have on hand by tomorrow’s midnight fundraising deadline. This deadline is so important that a group of Democrats have agreed to match your contribution 2-to-1, tripling your impact.

24 HOURS TO GO: Donate $3 or more to elect a strong Democratic majority for President Obama >>

Three things about this one: one is why are the Dems dunning the known conservative blogger John Hinderaker for money for their campaign?  Don’t they read anymore?  Oh, wait….  The second is what Hinderaker pointed out: those Dems providing the matching $2 for every $1 are the rich folks that James “It’s the economy, Stupid—ain’t that ironic?” Carville in another fund-dunner, sent out over his signature, heavily disparages.  The third thing is this: why don’t those $2-matching Democrats donate their money directly?  They’d get two-thirds the impact just from that.

Another dun is from Stephanie “He’s a felon” Cutter:

From: “Stephanie Cutter, BarackObama.com”
Date: July 29, 2012 2:13:24 PM EDT
Subject: Romney defeats Obama?
Reply-To: info@barackobama.com

When you read the news 101 days from now, that might be the headline you see.

Those few words will tell us whether we fought back hard enough against Romney and the Republicans’ massive special-interest fundraising machine — or if we didn’t do enough, maybe because we got complacent or thought that we had this one in the bag.

Donate $3 or more today — and don’t leave this one up to luck, chance, or anything else.

Don’t let anyone convince you that this is a sure thing — our opponents have almost unlimited resources at their disposal, and we already know they’ll outspend us by a good amount.

What we do now decides the headlines on November 7th.

We’re facing a huge fundraising deadline. Please donate now, and have a hand in the outcome of this election:

Thanks,

Stephanie

Stephanie Cutter
Deputy Campaign Manager
Obama for America

There’s just panic in this one.  Gotta have the money now, by a deadline whose sole value is as an arbitrary FEC intermediate reporting deadline?  And the implicit acknowledgement that ordinary Americans are donating more heavily to conservative and to Republican campaigns than they are to progressive and to Democratic campaigns.  The folks seem to be putting their money where their mouths are, and the Democratic Party has its collective panty in a twist.

 

h/t Power Line

An Influence on Bank Lending

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Professor Alan Blinder, of Princeton University, has another laugher in The Wall Street Journal.  This time he wants the Fed to “encourage” private bank lending—in an environment where the intended market is vary chary of taking on debt, new or additional—but without “without interfering in private credit-allocation decisions.”

His idea is stimulated by a scheme (in both the British and American English senses) of the Bank of England’s, itself generated out of the premise that UK banks aren’t lending enough to suit the government suits.  Essentially, Blinder wants to ape the BoE scheme of giving private lenders preferential rates on central bank lending according to how much lending the private lenders are doing.

Hmm….

First, Blinder operates from a false premise.  It’s impossible for government to “encourage” without “interfering in private decisions.”  The whole point of government encouragement to execute exactly that interference.  To claim that compliance is voluntary and so not interference is disingenuous sophistry.  Banks are out to make money for their owners, just as any business must—its fiduciary duty drives it to—make money for its owners.  The offer of a goodie for doing what government wants is no less a cudgel than providing a penalty for not doing.

Second, Blinder gives his game away in the penultimate paragraph of his piece:

Last, but certainly not least, there is the crucial question of what types of bank lending to subsidize.

Of course, the sole purpose of a subsidy is to drive the recipient to a government-desired behavior.  The whole point of government encouragement to execute exactly that interference.

Iran Warns Arab States Over Syria

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With apologies to The Wall Street Journal, from whose article I took the title of my post.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Sunni-led Arab states and Turkey, who are supporting Syria’s opposition in its battle with Tehran’s ally President Bashar al-Assad, that their insistence on toppling the Syrian regime will destabilize their own countries and the entire region.

“If they continue moving in the wrong direction then let them rest assured that the consequences of this will affect them too,” said Mr. Salehi in a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem, who was visiting Tehran Sunday.

And this is the nation our administration is so timid with regarding its nuclear weapons program.

But that’s OK—if that misunderstood al-Assad or those bad Iranians continue to misbehave, we’ll talk even more, and we’ll shake our fingers especially firmly at…someone.