"Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda." ~ Hannah Arendt (Political Theorist)
tories of eye-popping waste and abuse of power among Greece’s bureaucrats are legion, including officials who hire their wives, and managers who submit $38,000 bills for office curtains.
The work force in Greece’s Parliament is so bloated, according to a local press investigation, that some employees do not even bother to come to work because there are not enough places for all of them to sit.
But as Europe looks for any sign of hope that Greece is on the road to reform, there are growing concerns about its ability — and willingness — to trim its payroll, a crucial element in bringing expenses under control enough to win continued international financing. (Read more)
I’m pleasantly surprised to see this reported on. Usually, anybody who calls for cuts is condemned as a right wing fascist nut job.
Moscow on the Hudson because people are surrounded by impressive monuments and incompetent government.
Praise God that Hurricane Irene didn’t pound New York City nearly as severely as the State and its media threatened it would!
No church this morning: since the City shut down the subways and buses, congregants can’t assemble. Mayor “Nanny” Bloomberg advised us all to sleep late, as if neither the Lord nor His day of worship exist. And yet Christians support the State.
Meanwhile, the storm graphically proved the superiority of freedom and the market: while Our silly Rulers cowered and quavered, bars and restaurants posted placards: “Pre-Hurricane Party! C’mon in!” The tax-supported library didn’t even bother opening yesterday though we enjoyed a fine lunch of shrimp chow fon and chicken with cashews right next door. The City ordered everyone to stay home, and tried to force obedience by pulling the plug on public transit, but workers valiantly struggled to reach their jobs. A friend told me over our chow fon that he’d gone to his office that morning without knowing whether he’d gain access to the building or not: the staff that unlocks its doors might have stayed home since the subways were closing before their shift ended. In fact, when he arrived, not only did the porter admit him, he was on the phone with his replacement, asking whether he should pull a double shift or if the guy would find a way in from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Yep, Mr. Replacement said, he’d be there.
The State: utterly useless. The market: brave, inspiring, dedicated, dependable — and even providing delicious dinners and open offices despite impending rain. (Read more from lewrockwell.com)
Given the historic nature of this week’s historic agreement to cut federal spending historically, we thought it would be useful to provide you with a FAQ on the deal:
. . . .
Q: Yes, but how severe?
A: So severe, you could even say they were sharp.
Q: Could you put a number on that?
A: Sure, the initial cuts amount to $917 billion!
Q: Well, that’s not too bad, but we’d still run a deficit next year.
A: That’s not $917 billion next year, that’s $917 billion over ten years.
Q: That’s barely $90 billion for 2012, then.
A: More like $22 billion next year. The really historic, sharp, severe cuts take place much later.
Q: This doesn’t sound very convincing.
A: Just take a look at this chart and you’ll understand.
Q: I thought you said there were cuts.
A: There are! Look at them. We’re not sure how we’re supposed to run a government with cuts like these.
I think this is a ridiculous combination of Marxism and Keynesianism typical of high-level government officials, with a stress on Marxism, perhaps indicative of a former Labor Secretary.
1) A Marxist devotion to egalitarianism. Good and bad are evaluated in terms of less equal and more equal. Marxisms relies on a fervent hatred of the rich. Here’s an example of why pure egalitarian analysis is flawed:
Imagine a rich town where infant mortality is 3/100,000, and a poor town where infant mortality is 6/100,000. Imagine some technological breakthrough which reduces it by one in each town. So infant mortality becomes 2/100,000 and 5/100,000. Normal people would hail this as an improvement. But Marxists see that it represents an INCREASE in inequality. Instead of infant mortality being twice as high in poor areas, it’s now two and half times as high.
2) He claims we should hate the rich and that there’s a budget deficit because the rich aren’t paying their share.
Shouldn’t the fact that government spending doubled under Bush, and tripled under Obama enter into this analysis? Isn’t that a no-brainer?
Even if the government slaughtered all the rich people and took their money (something which had been attempted in Ukraine and elsewhere), even if the government took 100% of the profits from all fortune 500 companies, we still couldn’t afford the 2011 budget.
There’s also the fact the rich aren’t the same people from decade to decade. There’s a lot of mobility.
3) “instead of joining together” workers are competing
The Marxist dichotomy of all workers vs. all employers is bullshit. Workers compete against each other and employers compete against each other. Only politicians claim that the interests of huge groups of people are identical. Politicians need large groups of people to hate and/or fear other large groups of people.
4) The middle class can’t borrow, lacks purchasing power = high unemployment.
Spending does not drive the economy, and debt certainly doesn’t drive the economy. Savings do. When people spend less on consumer goods, it means they are saving more (ie planning for the future). In a free economy, this would mean that investment money becomes available for long term projects that will produce goods in the future.
Certain business need to close but opportunities are created for long term projects. The structure of production needs to change, and we ought to simply let it change.
In our Keynsian economy, the government tries to keep spending going, even though people are trying to save.
5) He’s also suggesting something completely ridiculous and wrong headed. He says that politically connected people have too much sway over government, and wants to fix this by giving the government more power. This would back fire if he ever had his way. Giving more resources and power to government means more incentive for people to control government. Letting people keep more of their money is a much better solution.
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Also, Austrian School economist Robert Murphy addresses of glaring falsehoods in the former Labo Secretary’s presentation:
“IF SOMETHING cannot go on for ever, it will stop,” Herb Stein once observed caustically. The American economist’s aphorism has proved apt of late—as applicable to Hosni Mubarak’s regime as it was to America’s rising property prices. Could it apply to the growth of the state? (Read more from economist.com)
A Congressional Budget Office analysis of the fiscal 2011 spending deal that Congress will vote on Thursday concludes that it would cut spending this year by less than one-one hundredth of what both Republicans or Democrats have claimed.
A comparison prepared by the CBO shows that the omnibus spending bill, advertised as containing some $38.5 billion in cuts, will only reduce federal outlays by $352 million below 2010 spending rates. The nonpartisan budget agency also projects that total outlays are actually some $3.3 billion more than in 2010, if emergency spending is included in the total.
The astonishing result, according to CBO, is the result of several factors: increases in spending included in the deal, especially at the Defense Department; decisions to draw over half of the savings from recissions, cuts to reserve funds, and mandatory-spending programs; and writing off cuts from funding that might never have been spent. (Read more from nationaljournal.com)
Here’s an interview with the man who said “I don’t want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it to the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Personally, I think he’s an inside-the-beltway pseudo libertarian. He should watch the Hoppe Video I recently posted, The Impossibility of Limited Government.
tories of eye-popping waste and abuse of power among Greece’s bureaucrats are legion, including officials who hire their wives, and managers who submit $38,000 bills for office curtains.
(Read more)
