Canadian Cincinnatus

Maybe the kinds are all right after all: according to the LA Times they don’t care about movie stars

The LA Times interviewed a ‘posse’ of young people about some current movies. Here are some of their comments:

“The film is populated with prominent names, notably Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston. But of the 11 members of the posse, only two knew anyone who was in the film (both of them pinpointing Farrell).”

“But even such top-tier stars as Will Smith, Robert Downey Jr. and Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson barely registered — and not always in a positive fashion. When discussing “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Max Nath, 16, could characterize Charlize Theron only as “that other woman.””

“After hearing the posse share its views, it was clear that it has a serious case of superhero fatigue. That even includes “The Avengers,” which is already breaking box-office records, but finished in the middle of the pack with the posse. As Isaac Galan, 15, put it: “It really feels a little cartoonish. I mean, is it a movie or a video game?”

For the posse, the superhero-style films, from “G.I. Joe” to “Spider Man” and “Men in Black” were simply underwhelming. “The frequency of all those superhero movies makes you think they’re just doing them to get another movie out,” said Jeremy Arnold, 17. “I wish they’d think of something more original. I mean, how many superheroes is too many superheroes?””

Fantastic. The less enamored they are with ephemeral pop stars and “role models” (i.e. people who play heroes but aren’t heroes themselves), the better.

For what it is worth, I believe their ambivalence to movie stars is a reflection of the fact that the very idea of a ‘movie star’ is in low repute these days. In Hollywood’s golden age, movie stars had a high reputation because the studios were very careful about cultivating their image. No alienating political opinions and no scandals (keep your dirty linen indoors). Or you are out. I think that Hollywood has been living on this cultural capital until recently. But they have finally spent it. Years of tawdry sex scandals, idiotic  opinions, shameless look-at-me behaviour and hypocritical pronouncements that serve only to highlight their intellectual limitations have finally taken their toll. Though the stars probably don’t know it yet, it will take years of hard work to regain their good will with the public.

 

Finally, a mainstream economist who agrees with me that Greece must leave the Eurozone

In Friday’s edition of Slate, an article by economist Nouriel Roubini appeared with the title, Greece Must Go: The nation is likely to leave the eurozone sooner or later. Sooner is better. Thank you. I had been saying the same thing from at least July of last year, when I stated:

The important thing for the EU is not to save Greece – it is all but lost – but to teach the other PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain) a lesson. The EU can do without Greece. 

Some sample quotes from Roubini’s Slate column:

Greece is stuck in a vicious cycle of insolvency, lost competitiveness, external deficits, and ever-deepening depression.

A return to a national currency and a sharp depreciation would quickly restore competitiveness and growth.

Economics teaches us that the worst way for a government to interfere with its economy is to set prices. With the Euro, the EU is manipulating the most important price of all – the price of money. The price of the Euro is appropriate for Germany; it is too high for the siesta culture of the Mediterranean. At some point, the resulting imbalance has to balance. That point is now.

Of course, the process would be traumatic, and not just for Greece. The most significant problem would be capital losses for core eurozone financial institutions. Overnight, the foreign euro liabilities of Greece’s government, banks, and companies would surge. Yet these problems can be overcome. Argentina did so in 2001, when it “peso-fied” its dollar debts.

Some argue that Greece’s real GDP would be much lower in an exit scenario than it would be during the hard slog of deflation. But that is logically flawed: Even with deflation, real purchasing power would fall, and the real value of debts would rise (debt deflation), as the real depreciation occurs. More importantly, the exit path would restore growth right away, via nominal and real depreciation, avoiding a decade-long depression. And trade losses imposed on the eurozone by the drachma depreciation would be modest, given that Greece accounts for only 2 percent of eurozone GDP.

Bankruptcy is an essential part of the healing process in a free market system. Bad debts can’t be allowed to fester. By preventing bankruptcy, all you do is to prolong the recession. This is why Japan’s ‘lost decade’ is entering its third decade. The TARP bailout has played a similar role in the Great Recession. By preventing bad banks from going under, the federal government has ensured that the US economy has flat-lined for over 3 years.

Those who claim that contagion from a Greek exit would drag others into the crisis are also in denial. Other peripheral countries already have Greek-style problems of debt sustainability and eroded competitiveness.

As the Rev Jeremiah Wright is fond of saying, “the chickens are coming home to roost.”

The experience of Iceland and many emerging markets over the past 20 years shows that nominal depreciation and orderly restructuring and reduction of foreign debts can restore debt sustainability, competitiveness, and growth. As in these cases, the collateral damage to Greece of a euro exit will be significant, but it can be contained.

Another example is the US recession of 1920. President Warren Harding’s policy was to do nothing. The result was an intense but short recession. Why was that depression short-lived? Because the bad debts were allowed to clear.

But hey, who needs free market solutions when we have access to Keynesian pump priming? Sure worked well to keep the Great Depression going for a decade. 

 

Steve Schmidt: the reason John McCain lost

One of the reasons I had so many reservations about Mitt Romney is that I feared, being an establishment moderate, he would run the kind of gentlemanly loser campaign that John McCain ran in 2008. With the exception of picking Sarah Palin as the running mate, McCain’s campaign did everything wrong. And it even managed to mismanage that one success: after Palin’s firebrand acceptance speech - the one that propelled McCain ahead of Obama in the polls (for the first time in months) - the McCain campaign hid her away but did nothing to prepare her while she was sequestered. The architect of that defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory debacle was the bullet-headed Steve Schmidt.

For this reason, I was much interested in this expose article on Schmidt at Big Journalism. A very informative article that deserves to be read in its entirety.

For some background information, check out Schmidt’s wikipedia entry. This is what it says about his early campaigns:

In 1995, Steve Schmidt managed the unsuccessful campaign for Kentucky Attorney General of Will T. Scott, who is now Deputy Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court [in other words Scott was good, his 1995 campaign run by Schmidt just sucked]. This Kentucky campaign's advertising strategy was featured in the second edition of George Magazine. In 1998, Schmidt ran California State Senator Tim Leslie's unsuccessful race for Lt. Governor of California. Also that year, he was the Communications Director for California State Treasurer Matt Fong's unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer [I remember this campaign; Fong was widely viewed as having a credible shot at unseating Boxer]. In 1999, he was the Communications Director for Lamar Alexander's presidential run, leaving in June when the campaign reduced its senior staff.

You will notice that the two things common with each campaign: Steve Schmidt, and the fact that his employer lost. While it is true that he led Arnold’s 2006 successful gubernatorial campaign, this was accomplished when Arnold was at the apogee of his popularity. As far as I am able to determine, this has been Schmidt’s only campaign victory - ever.

I agree with Moe Lane, who said:

The faction of Team McCain represented by Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace should not be allowed anywhere NEAR a Republican Presidential campaign for the rest of their lives.

Hear, hear. Steve Schmidt is the John Tory of American politics.

European austerity is the wrong answer to Europe’s problems

As a small government conservative, I might be expected to champion government austerity wherever I find it. However, this is not the case. For instance, I am greatly opposed to the European-style austerity programs that are being foisted upon Greece and Spain.

But isn’t government austerity good, the fiscal equivalent of cod liver oil? Depends on what you mean by austerity. In Europe, austerity doesn’t just mean cutbacks in government spending. It also means tax increases, particularly on the wealthy. Do you still like austerity - European-style?

The reason such a program cannot work is that the biggest factor determining the state of a government’s budget is economic growth. The reason is twofold: the government’s principal source of revenue is income tax, which declines in a recession; and its biggest expenditure is welfare spending, which skyrockets in a downturn. For this reason, an economic slowdown negatively impacts government revenues and outlays at the same time. In contrast, economic growth positively impacts both items at the same time. Therefore, an economic plan that does not stimulate growth will not work well.

Unfortunately, thanks to steep tax hikes for job creators, European austerity plans are not neutral with regard to economic growth. These plans are job killers - and growth killers. Therefore, while the spending cuts will help the government bottom line, the tax increases will throw more people out of work and cut government revenues even more – negating the positive effects of the cuts. With pain increasing both on the job market and the welfare office, the country finds itself in a death spiral, with government cuts chasing lost government revenues.

This can be seen in the US federal budget since the 2008 meltdown. As I mentioned a year ago. 

Much of the current deficit is caused by a combination of a loss of income tax revenue corresponding with an increase in social spending due to the Great Recession. Medicare, AFDC, Section 8 vouchers, food stamps, unemployment insurance: all of these programs have grown by 50% or more in the past 3 years.

As much as we conservatives like to think, Obama’s big spending initiatives have not been the biggest factor propelling the trillion dollar US deficits. It is social spending, caused by the recession. Grow the economy and these budget-busting items will shrivel all on their own – as revenue rises!

This is why I am also opposed to the IMF. They push the European brand of austerity to any troubled country that will listen to them. Fortunately, countries that turn down their strings-attached loans invariably do better.

Indeed. If you look at history, there are basically only two ways that governments have ever dealt with a crippling debt load. The first is to default. The second is to modestly reduce government spending, keeping discretionary expenditures constant in absolute terms for a number of years, while growing the economy so that tax revenues increase as social spending declines. These are the only two realistic choices. European-style austerity is not an option, at least not one that has ever worked in the past.

 

One cheer for France: France elects an anti-EU President

Say Cincinnatus, aren’t you one of those free market extremists?

Yes.

So why are you cheering (admittedly half-heartedly) about the defeat of France’s conservative president and the election, in his place, of an avowed socialist, who calls himself, “an enemy of finance”?

Good question. The answer is that I think the biggest pressing problem facing Europe today is the Euro. And the socialist central planners who set up the EU and the eurozone were so diabolically clever in setting it up that they got free market conservatives to champion central planning. They did this by joining free trade policy (which conservatives like) at the hip with central planning (which they want). As a result, France’s conservative president, Nicholas Sarkozy propped up the dying corpse of central planning throughout his reign with stop-gap measures like austerity and government bailouts.

This is why I am half-heartedly glad that he is gone. With Hollande, these programs will be that much less likely to be carried out. This has a number of good consequences that I am not sure Hollande does not intend. Without constant bailouts and austerity imposed by countries like Germany on countries like Greece, the EU will destabilize to the point where the PIIGS will depart the eurozone. When this is seen to not cause the end of the world, the entire EU edifice in Brussels will crumble.

But won’t Hollande’s prosperity-through-socialism prove to be economically disastrous for France? Oh, undoubtedly. But there is problem number 1 and problem number 2. In Europe today, problem number 1 is the price distortions caused by the centrally determined cost of money (i.e. the Euro) and Problem number 2 is everything else, whether the welfare state or unassimilatable Muslim immigrants. Problem number 1 needs to be dealt with today. Problem number 2 can wait until next week.

For instance, all of Greece’s current troubles are caused by the fact that it has to labour under a currency that is way too high for them. If it weren’t for the Euro, the Drachma would fall, the easy foreign credit would dry up (forcing Greeks to save), and Greek exports would become competitive again (putting Greeks back to work). As long as the Euro is in Greece, these things won’t happen and Greece will continue to bleed (and to get more indebted with each subsequent bailout package).

But wouldn’t a free-market-based disengagement from the European Union be better for France than more socialism, with its many negative side effects? Absolutely. But tell me, which candidate in the French Presidential elections is a reincarnation of Ronald Reagan? Such a politician currently does not exist in the French political landscape, so we have to settle for the lesser of two evils.

Machiavelli taught that if a political disease is too far-gone, the best solution is to let it run its course. The problem with Sarkozy is not that, in objective terms, he is a worse man than Hollande. He is not. He is a much better man. It’s just that he is good enough to keep the EU plodding along but not accomplished enough to tackle its contradictions head on. Machiavelli also taught that half-measures dig the grave deeper. By any measure, the Sarkozy legacy has been a series of half-measures.

 

Obama’s past girlfriends

In a Politico story that made headlines on the Drudge Report, it was revealed that the ‘mysterious white girlfriend’ that Barack Obama mentioned in his autobiography (the first autobiography, not the second) was a composite of different characters. This doesn’t surprise me a bit, as Stanley Kurtz in Radical in Chief states that the names of many individuals in Dreams From My Father (particularly the political types) are pseudonyms. Hmm... I wonder why he would do that?

What did strike me was the following passage (emphasis added):

"During an interview in the Oval Office, Obama acknowledged that, while Genevieve was his New York girlfriend, the description in his memoir was a “compression” of girlfriends, including one who followed Genevieve [Cook] when he lived in Chicago," Maraniss writes in his new biography, an excerpt of which was published online today by Vanity Fair.

So, let me get this straight: in addition to all the vacations, all the golf games, non-stop fundraising and the continuous campaigning, as well as taking time out to pick the winners of college basketball games, President Obama has room in his schedule to reminisce about his old flames.

Good thing he doesn’t have a demanding job!

 

Happy Lenin’s Birthday! er, I mean Earth Day

Once again, its that time of year. Every year on this day, I take the time out to remind everyone that April 22 - Earth Day - is Vladimir Lenin’s birthday.

Lest you think this is just a 1 in 365 coincidence exploited by right-wing hate-mongers such as myself, consider the fact that the first Earth Day - April 22, 1970 – was the one hundredth anniversary of Lenin’s birth.

To be fair, Earth Day is increasingly being celebrated on the spring equinox. This is a positive development that helps distance the environmentalist movement from the ideals of a bloodthirsty killer.

Why is nobody paying attention to the racist mass murders in Tulsa, Oklahoma?

Over the weekend, two white men were charged in the shooting deaths of three black people and the wounding of two others in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The killers were both charged with murder and “hate crime charges”. They have both confessed to the killings but have pled not guilty to murder. The killings appear to be random in that there is no known connection between the victims and the killers. Given this and the fact that the only common denominator between the victims is that they are all black, it is reasonable to assume that racial hatred was the motive (in spite of protestations to the contrary by one of the accused).

So, if the media is so concerned about anti-black racism, where is the collective outrage over this slam-dunk case of racial hate-crime? Where is the sustained moral indignation?

Considering the fact that the circumstances of the Trayvon Martin - George Zimmerman case are much more ambiguous, why is that case garnering so much more media oxygen? Why didn’t the New Black Panther Party issue a bounty on the heads of the two white killers? Why hasn’t Mike Tyson called for them to be shot? And why hasn’t Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson organized demonstrations and threatened riots? 

Could it be that the problem with the Tulsa case is that it is too uncontroversial? Not uncontroversial in that people aren’t morally outraged by it, but uncontroversial in that a vast majority of the people are outraged over it in the same way. In other words, if everybody – black and white - finds these killings utterly deplorable, there is no opportunity to sow racial discord. At best, you have a Dead Man Walking – style debate about capital punishment. These days, ho hum.

In contrast, recent polls show the opinions of whites and blacks divergent on the Martin – Zimmerman case, with whites lining up behind the neighbourhood watch volunteer and blacks lining up behind the innocent victim. Lots of potential for controversy – and getting your name in the paper. Just like the O J Simpson trial!

Something to consider when pondering the motives of those sensationalizing the events in Sanford, Florida.

 

 

A most excellent definition of racism

My last post about political correctness, prompted by the Derbyshire affair, got me thinking about the definition of racism itself. For a long time, I have had the vague notion that the word ‘racism’ has been redefined by the Political Indoctrinators to mean something more than what most people mean by that word, and that this ambiguity is used by the PC-heads to their advantage. In other words, they have a wide-ranging, hazy definition that they use to ensnare victims but have a narrow, specific definition that they use to describe the general concept of racism to the general public. In this way, people who are not really paying attention (i.e. centrists or moderates) end up assuming that people charged with racism are guilty according to an exacting definition (that they were never accused of).

To my rescue comes Eric S Raymond, who has cut to the heart of the matter by analyzing the current definition racism, determining what is wrong with it and positing an improved definition in its place.

So fasten your seatbelts, here we go:

“One of the most important reasons not to tell ourselves pretty lies about unpleasant realities is so that we do not hand evil people the power of being the only ones who are willing to speak the truth.”

“A rather larger number [of commenters to his blog] accused of me of holding to a standard for “racism” and “racist thinking” that is too narrow, because I reject ever describing as “racist” people who speak beliefs that are factually justified – even if those beliefs are negative about specific racial groups and even if they are expressed with intent to provoke. I hold that truth should be considered a sufficient defense against charges of racism just as it is against slander and libel.”

“[M]any commenters were willing to condemn him [Derbyshire] as a racist even though they conceded that his fact base is largely sound and there is no evidence that his errors (if any) are dishonest. I even had one person defend this expansive definition of “racist” on the grounds that this is how almost everyone understands the word.

I am writing to argue that such a loose definition of “racist” is a dangerous mistake.”

“Nobody sane wants to hand power and credibility to neo-Nazis or the Christian Identity movement or Confederate revanchists or any of the other tiny clusters of bigoted wack jobs at the fringes of American politics. But that is exactly what we do every time we tell pretty lies about race. It is exactly what we do every time we use “racist” as a verbal cudgel against people who deviate in the slightest from politically-correct thinking. And it is exactly what we do when we honk endlessly about the need for a “national conversation about race”, then run the likes of John Derbyshire out of town on a rail for speaking honestly.

To avoid putting bigots and racists on the right and truthful side of the argument, we need a strict definition of “racist” claims as those which (a) prejudice individual judgment of individuals, and (b) are based on false generalizations. We cannot allow true generalizations to be considered racist. If we do that, either (a) we can no longer condemn racism as such, or (b) we get stuck in a situation where we’re not allowed to notice that white men can’t jump and black men can’t swim, wondering why our sports teams aren’t “balanced”, and falsely ascribing to bigotry what arises from natural differences in distributions of ability. And the poison spreads.

Only the haters and creeps and race-hustlers of all colors win under either of those outcomes. So please do not give evil people the gift of being sloppy in your thinking and your language [emphasis added].”

My only quibble with Raymond’s definition is the addition of the phrase “even if they are expressed with intent to provoke” to “I reject ever describing as ‘racist’ people who speak beliefs that are factually justified – even if those beliefs are negative about specific racial groups.” I think we have a civic duty to be polite to our fellow citizens and not provoke them unnecessarily. The truth should be sacred but picking a fight has nothing to do with a search for truth. Legally, there is such a thing as ‘fighting words’.

 

Obama’s elitist war on stay-at-home moms

At this point in the US Presidential campaign, the Team Obama strategy is coming into clear focus: create a series of divisive crises to drive a wedge between the proletariat masses and the governing elites. Many conservative commentators attributed this to Obama’s desire to avoid his own record. As the legal saying goes, if your case is strong on facts, argue the facts; if your case is strong on the law, argue the law; and if your case is strong on neither, attack the witnesses.

I think they are only partly right. Stanley Kurtz predicted in his book, Radical in Chief, that Obama would do this and his book appeared before the 2010 midterms. Kurtz based his prediction on the fact that this is the classic community organizer strategy and Barack Obama is a community organizer. This is what community organizers do; it’s straight out of the Saul Alinsky playbook. 

The contraception mandate (clearly designed to antagonize the Catholic Church), the Sandra Fluke-Rush Limbaugh dustup, the Travyon Martin-George Zimmerman-O J Simpson fiasco and now the attack on Ann Romney because she is a stay-at-home mother are all media events that Team Obama has either manufactured, amplified or latched on to. Unfortunately for Obama, in driving a wedge between one group of Americans and another, he invariably ends up lumping himself with the minority.

The Hilary Rosen affair is very instructive. As many readers doubtlessly already know, last Wednesday, Obama surrogate Hilary Rosen opined on CNN that Ann Romney is out of touch with average America because she “has never worked a day in her life”. The Drudge Report promptly posted a picture of Mitt and Ann sitting with their brood five boys. How out of touch do you have to be to think it is a good idea to get an elitist Washington lawyer to criticize the institution of motherhood. Could you imagine Bill Clinton making such a mistake?

(Of course, to be fair, disavowals from key Team Obama players like David Axelrod came quickly. Still, who was the twit that green-lighted Rosen in the first place?)

This kind of mistake happens because Barack Obama is too self-unaware to appreciate his utter disconnect with mainstream America. It is not that he is a rich elitist like Mitt Romney. It is worse than that because I think the average American can identify with Romney’s life a lot easier than Obama’s. Obama’s life isn’t so much privileged, as it is weird. He has been a lifelong intellectual ideologue and therefore understands people only in terms of Marxist class-structure. In contrast, Bill Clinton understands people as they really are.

So keep at Barack! By the time you are finished with him, Mitt Romney will come across like the reincarnation of Tom Joad.