The Siena poll, one of the two key polls of New York state voters, has come out with its monthly snapshot of the presidential race in the Empire State. And it’s stunning. It is remarkable, though not eye-opening, that John McCain is now only 5 points behind Barack Obama, 46-41 – not shocking because polls have narrowed to similar margins in New Jersey. (It should be noted, however, that according to a Rasmussen poll released yesterday, Obama is leading in New York by 55-42.)
No, the shocking detail has to do with a wild, 35-point swing toward McCain among Jewish voters. Obama led among them by a margin of 50-37 in August. This month, McCain is actually leading Obama by a margin of 54 percent to 32 percent.
Siena polled 626 likely voters this month. Of those, according to Steve Greenberg, the spokesman for the Siena poll, 77 were Jews, or 12 percent of the sample. That is Siena’s best guess of the size of the Jewish vote in New York state in November. With a sample size that small, the margin of error for the Jewish voter sample is plus-or-minus 11 points.
That means the poll could be off by as many as 11 points in either direction — i.e., McCain could be leading by as little as 11 points or by as many as 33. (UPDATE: I got this wrong; this stat could also mean they’re tied or that McCain is more than 40 points ahead or anywhere in the middle. For a clarification on this point, click here.)
The only difference between the September poll and the August poll as a matter of methodology is that in September, Siena polled likely voters, whereas in August it only polled registered voters.
The poll could, of course, be an outlier. But if it even begins to approximate the truth, it is huge news. No Republican has scored more than 39 percent of the Jewish vote in modern times, and that was Ronald Reagan in 1980, following a series of missteps by the Carter administration. These sorts of numbers for McCain have implications in two other states particularly — Florida and Pennsylvania.
In Florida, the implications are obvious. Obama’s own Jewish organizers in Florida are telling the campaign they are finding profound resistance to him, particularly in South Florida. The polling overall there seems to be moving inexorably in McCain’s direction, which is necessary for him; it is nearly impossible to see how he can win the election if he loses Florida.
But what about Pennsylvania? That is a state it appears Obama must win. There are, it is estimated, more than 200,000 Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, a state John Kerry won by 140,000 votes. If we assume Pennsylvania’s 200,000 voting Jews voted in the same way as Jews nationwide in 2004 and went 76-24 for Kerry, we can attribute 150,000 Jewish votes to Kerry, his entire margin of victory plus seven percent. Now imagine if that number had been closer to 50-50. Kerry would have received 100,000 Jewish votes rather than 150,000. Bush would have received 100,000 Jewish votes rather than 50,000. Kerry’s margin of victory would then have shrunk to 40,000 votes.
It appears Obama may have a tougher time in Pennsylvania than Kerry did because of his difficulty attracting the ethnic white vote in the western part of the state. If there is a Jewish swing away from him as well, he really could lose there. And if he loses there and loses Ohio, he is sunk. Ohio has approximately 80,000 Jewish voters, so a swing away from Obama to a 50-50 race would cost him 25,000 votes Kerry presumably received in 2004 — and in a state that Bush won by 121,000 votes.
We’ll need more data from two other states with a significant Jewish population to allow for a measurable sample size in a poll – Florida and California – and a polling firm willing to break out the Jewish vote as Siena has, to see whether this is just statistical smoke or whether Obama has a brushfire he needs to put out somehow before it consumes him.
Ha Ha Ha!
Here’s George W., arguing for reform of Fannie and Freddie, er, I mean taking credit for the sound policies that created the housing bubble:
“Thanks to being the most productive workforce in America, and I might say, thanks to good policies, this economy is strong and it’s getting stronger. … Home sales were the highest ever recently. That’s exciting news for the country.” — GWB, 05/06/04
“We’re creating… an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property. – President George W. Bush, October 2004.” (wikipedia)
8/28/04: “See, I love an ownership society. It’s a hopeful society. It’s a society that provides stability in times of change.” (think progress)
8/9/04: “If you own your own home, and building equity in your own home, and you’re changing from job to job, it provides great security and relief.”
8/6/04: “Home ownership is at an all-time high now in America. That’s fantastic news. Isn’t it wonderful to have somebody for the first time be able to say: welcome to my home; I’m glad you’re here at my piece of property.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To be fair, Time magazine ranked the most blameworthy figures who gave rise to the current crisis. No. 1 is Phil Gramm.
“As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 1995 through 2000, Gramm was Washington’s outspoken champion of deregulation. And he got it, by playing a lead role in the writing and passage of the 1999 repeal of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, which had separated commercial banks from Wall Street. Then he inserted a provision into the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act that exempted derivatives like credit-default swaps from regulation.”
Bush tax cuts — especially of 2003 — helped trigger and sustain 52 consecutive months of economic growth, a record for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (exceeding 14,000 at one stage), real GDP growth of 17 percent from 2000-2007
You still are so clueless. This was the BUBBLE you are describing,and Obama’s fatal error is that he is trying to reinflate that totally burst BUBBLE.
Come on, Peter, “whether this turns into a pattern?” Obama has been lying since the day he announced his candidacy on the steps of the Old Statehouse in Springfield. It’s been a pattern for a long time.
“So President Obama’s claim that the “failed theories of the last eight years” have gotten us “into this fix in the first place” is simply not true”
This is very true. It’s the failed policies of the last 40 years that have done the job. Please read “Human Action” by Von Mises before you say another word on any economics issue;you are so embarrassing yourself;you have no idea.
Alan Shrugged.
Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) — Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami” has engulfed financial markets and conceded that his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.
Yes, I found a flaw,” Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ah5qh9Up4rIg&refer=home
Does anyone really expect a Bush lackey to get economics right? Watch Wehner spin. It was all fannie and freddie and that big homo in Congress. Riiiiiiiiight.
Economic growth is a “bubble”? GDP growth is a “bubble”? Increasing stock prices are a “bubble”?
#6
Makes perfect sense to me. If asset prices rise far above their intrinsic value, that is the very definition of a bubble. One step forward and two steps back is a record of failure. What are you having trouble comprehending?
#6,”Economic growth is a “bubble”? GDP growth is a “bubble”? Increasing stock prices are a “bubble”?
Please read some Classical Economics,read about the Tulips.
Pelosi is doing the hocu-focus voting for pork barrel laden stimulus package while everyone is distracted blaming Bush.
Obamatons are really blind sheeps. They are heading to the cliff and they didn’t even know it.
Well #7, the Obamas will get rid of that growth problem that is really a bubble. No more bubble baths in the USA. I hope when your income increases you recognize it as an unsustainable bubble.
On to another thing. Alan Greenspan is 82 years old. The list of things that he is no longer qualified to do because of his age approximates a democrat spending bill. People that are 82 years old are classified as VULNERABLE ADULTS. They can’t make rational decisions. If the Obamas are doing anything at all right, it is staying away from super-annuated advisors and appointees, even if their selections include the ethically challenged and outright criminals.
“But the short version is that at the mid-point of the decade, Fannie and Freddie began engaging in ever riskier lending, due in large measure to pressure from Congress (and especially liberal Democrats) to make mortgages available to low-income people who in the past would not have qualified for them.”
Don’t you feel just a little pathetic, blaming the economic crisis on poor people who bought houses? As if Goldman or Lehman really cares what poor people do.
The people who make these are really the scum of the earth. I suppose it makes you feel better, which is somewhat disturbing, and makes you and every other republican look like a fool.
Keep it up. You guys aren’t going to win anything with this garbage.
Not only Obama did nothing as a Senator to regulate Fannie (“under great leadership if Franklin Raines” according to crazy Maxine), but also sued Citibank for not giving enough bad loans even before he became Senator. So Obama is right at the source of this financial crisis. Not that even he was powerful enough to do it alone, but he did his best to bring it on us. Unfortunately he is much more powerful now. Be ready.
edit: “these arguments” There you go.
Ok, you may continue blaming black people for your inability to buy the new 5-series this spring.
The Dems and Obamatons kool-aid drinkers are paving the way for the WELFARE Generation, free house, free car, free gas while dismantling private enterprise.
It is time to get ready your offshore account and wait for handouts from the Messiah.
#10,” I hope when your income increases you recognize it as an unsustainable bubble.”
It’s called Inflation and it can be unsustainable. I made $35000 in 1973,what does my income need to be this year to match that?,I’ll give you a hint,I won’t match it.
#11
I need some cash to get into a gold position but I don’t have any collateral. You could loan me ten grand or so and I promise to pay you back, since the Obama regime will make gold worth about $4000 an ounce. I am poor, by the way.
#1
Time magazine said that Phil Gramm is the #1 culprit? Oh, then it must be true. Phil Gramm has probably done more than any single individual to lift more people out of poverty and create a society of upwardly mobile citizens, than anyone in history. But what do you expect when the so-called “journalist” covering economic issues for Time, has an advanced degree in Women’s Studies.
The irony is, that more people can afford to buy Time and go to college to get degrees in Women’s Studies, because of Phil Gramm’s policies.
There is enough blame to go around. The biggest failure of the Bush ownership society and the attitudes it encouraged is the asymmetrical interpretation of ownership. Everyone owns the good times yet no one owns the mistakes. Politicians became fond of saying that they accept responsibility for misdeeds but there were no consquences like jail. If Obama really wanted to solve the problem, he would tell the American people that “we’ve spent beyond our means for too long and now is the time that we have to pay for that excess. As a society we’ve overpaid for housing and amassed too much debt. It is time to start saving and investing in productive assets.” What does he do, he floats the idea that the government should assist people whom gotten over their head with mortgage debt, a giant f*** you to Americans who embody conservative values. If you’ve spent prudently now you have to subsidize those who didn’t. If you didn’t amass debt voluntarily by buying an overpriced house, the government is going to involuntarily make you pay off other people’s debts by stealing your savings through a devaluation of the dollar, artificially keeping interest rates low so you can’t earn a fair return on capital and by cancelling other the mortgage debt of others. For every debt that is cancelled their is a creditor whose investment is expropriated. Honorable people sacrifice and pay their debts. Honor is a conservative value, thrift is a conservative value. A period of low or negative growth during which the investment capital of our country is rebuilt at the expense of consumption is really what the United States of America needs. Obama simply wants to perpetuate consumption over investment. Obama should implement additional tax cuts to encourage investment by building on President Bush’s tax cuts on capital gains and dividends and reducing those levies to zero.
Chuck, you don’t have to come right out and say “I don’t understand why this crisis occurred.” But since you did, let me give you a short lesson.
My loan to you for gold w/out collateral. A stupid deicision on my part, of course, but I make it anyway and you default. That’s a bummer for me. But it’s an isolated bummer, and people will live on.
But say I sell my stupid loan to you to a big bank. That bank rounds up a bunch of other stupid loans and creates an instrument by which other banks/funds can make bets on that bundle of garbage. Oh, the best part is, there’s a credit rating agency lying about your ability to pay it. And say, oh i dunno, people bet on that instrument 400, 4,000, or 40,000 times over. This multiplies the value of that little instrument many, many times over. It’s a huge pile of fake dough, and yachts and cars are sold. Everything is peachy.
But wait, Chuck, when you default on my loan to you now, well, now THAT’S kind of a problem. Because that bundle of garbage has been creating a big mound of fake, on-paper-only money between all these banks. They even have INSURANCE on this bundle of garbage. And it’s impossible to pull my stupid loan to you out of the bundle of garbage, so the whole thing is worthless. Yachts are sold and cars are repossessed. Many people become sad.
But see, Chuck, it’s ok. I don’t blame you for all of that. Because I’m not a idiot.
#16
Hammer, you are preaching to the choir. But, the damage didn’t start in Jan. 2009,it has a history that is truly bi-partisan. Maybe you would enjoy this article on Gold that was in the WSJ yesterday. The author is a very brilliant economist who wrote a book on the forthcoming Crash of the Soviet Union in 1985. The CIA was saying at the same time that the USSR was totally solvent. They asked her how she predicted that,she told them,that she went to the library and studied Soviet economic data,and saw that they were insolvant. Isn’t it funny that we only outlasted the USSR by 30 years regarding solvancy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440593696275773.html
#15
“$35k in 1973?” Obviously, you’re what Pres. Obama would describe as rich? Were you a war profiteer? So, you livin’ large under Nixon.
17
Gramm is the cardinal of a failed religion. Show me an unregulated market that works.
Then if anything increases in value it’s a “bubble”. Or inflation. I’m not sure that von Mises or Hayek or Rothbard would go along with that. You might be to Austrian Economics as Eminem is to music.
#22
Show me an overregulated market that works?
#22
“Gramm is the cardinal of a failed religion.”
The last 30 years have seen economic growth, in this country, unparralled in history. And we live in a global economy, so when the US economic engine sped up we brought the rest of the world with us, including India and China. Phil Gramm’s policies have done more to bring Indians out of poverty than most policies by the Indian government.
#21,
And my award for doing so well is the Alternative minimum Tax that cost my family over $10k last year. I understand that The AMT is going bye bye under the Stimulus plan. That alone,is enough for me to support it. Bush with all his Tax BS,never got rid of the AMT.
#26
Is the AMT going bye bye or is this just the annual ‘fix?’
16
Guess what the next bust is going to be, Chuck?
As stocks rebound, reflecting an improvement in the outlook for the economy, gold will crash. And then we’ll all be talking about the saps who just lived through the tech bubble and the housing bubble only to get burned again with the gold bubble, and “how could they not have seen it coming?”
Well, you heard it here. Sell high. The time to buy is when everyone else is fearful.
StevenG-
There are lots of unregulated markets that work. Are Best Buy, Fry’s etc. regulated? The movie industry? Restaurants? Many of these areas are subject to health and safety laws, which are different than financial regulation.
Besides, no one is saying that the financial markets should be completely deregulated. What many are saying is that these companies should be able to run free of government interference.
I agree that it wasn’t the lending to the poor that caused these problems. The problem was that risky loan instruments were not confined to the poor. Letting the poor overleverage isn’t a huge problem because these people don’t have the economic weight to damage the economy. Let the middle class and wealthy overleverage is a problem.
#25,”Phil Gramm’s policies have done more to bring Indians out of poverty than most policies by the Indian government.”
Law of unintended consequences,What about us middle class Americans? Uh-Oh
#19
Actually, the gold would be the collateral, according to the parallel you’re making. In a financial environment where the gold had been increasing in value astronomically over the years, like housing in most of the U.S., that would seem like a low risk loan. You can blame credit default swaps, or mortgage tranches, or whatever you want, but when home buyers, with the advantage of tax free mortgage interest payments, used the escalating value of homes as their savings accounts, the economy was headed over a cliff. #18 is as correct as you can get, especially in regard to the fact that the honest members of society that embraced thrift and good judgement are going to be REQUIRED to subsidize the recovery of the ninnys.
#25,
I forgot to ask,How’s that European Bank doing that PG worked for? UBS? USB? Whatever.
#25
“Phil Gramm’s policies have done more to bring Indians out of poverty than most policies by the Indian government.”
See, this is why it’s good for liberals and conservatives to talk. I was operating under the assumption that, as a US Senator, Phil Gramm was primarily concerned with helping America. I did not realize that we were looking at this from the standpoint of India, which you rightly point out is the beneficiary of our loss of high tech jobs.
I guess we pretty much agree, then.
Phil Gramm ensured that credit derivatives would not be regulated. He was therefore a key architect of the current market failure. Sorry, but those are the facts. Even Alan Greenspan concurs.
#32
Don’t know. How’s the community that Obama was a Community Organizer for doing?
Didn’t Paul Krugman work for Enron? How are they doing?
#28
Illuminate me on the effects of dumping a couple trillion dollars of imaginary, freshly printed fiat money on the economy. In a situation where the government has yet to elucidate a plan for reviving the mortgage seizure. There’s no doubt that some sections of the mortgage banking industry have ideas about how to save their own bacon and others that weren’t as exposed. Those guys will be O.K. as far as it goes. But inflation is going to hurt them, just as it’s going to hurt me and everybody else that acted financially responsible for the last twenty years. If there was ever a scenario when gold was going to be where it’s at, this is it.
#33
Sorry, maybe I was unclear. His policies created wealth in the US that helped to create wealth in India.
Does Alan Greenspan concur that his easy money policies helped to create the real estate bubble, that caused the excesses in subprime lending?
btw…I worked in high tech and never had any trouble finding high paying jobs. When the economy shrinks here it shrinks in India as well.
#35,”If there was ever a scenario when gold was going to be where it’s at, this is it.”
Like I said,you’re preaching to the choir,except remember what those Hunt Brothers did to Silver,it can be done to Gold also
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440593696275773.html
Huge, supply side tax cuts now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111!!!!!
Strong $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One cannot fail to be amazed at the green eyeshade idiocy that would induce a minimally literate person to argue that letting productive actors in the economy create a bubble.
Easy $ and egregious crimes by Fannie and Freddi and their supporters to be sure.
#29
“There are lots of unregulated markets that work. Are Best Buy, Fry’s etc. regulated? The movie industry? Restaurants? Many of these areas are subject to health and safety laws, which are different than financial regulation.” — Marty H
Are you on crack? Tell Best Buy its market is unregulated and its executives will laugh in your face. Heck, or try merging Best Buy and its next biggest competitor and see how much you end up paying anti-trust lawyers.
Are any of the companies you mention subject to minimum wage laws (price setting)? Do they have to pay workers compensation? Adhere to ADA disability access laws? Meet zoning and permitting codes? Avoid false claims in advertising? Disclose calorie contents or movie ratings?
The companies you cite are in well regulated industries. And yet you offered them up examples of markets “that work.” So what you are saying is that well regulated markets can work just fine, thrive even. In fact, many of those regulations — such as the entitrust laws — keep those markets competitive. So government intervention is necessary.
What happens in Monopoly? Everyone starts out even, with equal bankrolls and equal chances at success. And one person ends up owning everything. So it goes with laissez-faire economics.
I agree completely with your last point that lending to the poor barely contributed to the current crisis. It had more to do, IMO, with poorly regulated derivatives and risk management.
38
cavalier Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 12:42 PM
Huge, supply side tax cuts now
There’s no demand and too much personal debt,and no jobs for the government employees that will saturate the “private”marketplace like Rats as they’re laid off. I sell for a major IT services firm. We’ll take the tax cut;but we’re still underwater,and so are all of our prospects. NO DEMAND,get it through your thick skull.
#36
“Does Alan Greenspan concur that his easy money policies helped to create the real estate bubble, that caused the excesses in subprime lending?”
I don’t know, to be honest. He certainly deserves blame there. He was trying to avert a meltdown after 9/11. He ended up kicking the can down the road at the very least and probably caused a greater crisis than the one he avoided.
There is no demand because the government is flushing the financial future of this counry down the toilet in a way that would be violantely offensive to the environemntal regulation for such actions.
Tax cuts that would create real value in the market and inspire confidence would instantaneously create demand and the kind of growth that would conceivabley ameliorate or eradicate most of our debt problems.
True, this would require some responsibility by private citizens and businesses for at least a period of time and responsible behavior by the government, a dubious prospect under the best of cirucumstances.
Yeah, the issue is a lack of regulation. If regulation worked so well, we wouldn’t have cops spending all night tracking down drunk drivers. There are several problems with the utopian theories of regulation. First of all, who makes ‘em? Is there some omniscient Solomon that can create a risk-free financial utopia? Or even a team of them? Doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that. And if there were, could they produce an attorney’s office wall of legalese that would guarantee that Harvard Business School MBAs couldn’t come up with financial instruments that dwarf the human genome in complexity? Probably not.
Secondly, regulations give people a false sense of security. “The SEC keeps track of these funds. There’s no way Bernie Madoff could be pulling any kind of a stunt.” We saw how well that worked.
The less regulation there is, the more opportunity there is for honesty and integrity. Minerals are a good example. You might think something is gold. You send it to a private company, a testing lab that determines if it is, and what it’s value is. The company has to perform or, unlike the government, it goes out of business.
#42,”Tax cuts that would create real value in the market
Sure Mr Kudlow,except that most of the business-employment here is with companies that are privately owned. The stock market isn’t an issue right now to most businesses. Right now,the owners of private businesses are going to take that tax cut money,and put it in their offshore accounts,and continue to downsize. AND they are buying nothing. Besides most public companies aren’t paying taxes now because they are losing money. And the marginal rates aren’t at 70% like in the halycon days you so yearn for. The fix for this mess is going to be much rougher than the world of the tax cutters or the stimuli pushers would indicate.
#43
“The less regulation there is, the more opportunity there is for honesty and integrity.” — chuck martel
And you call us utopians? Thanks for the laugh.
Steven G-
Again, no one is arguing for laissez faire. The difference between the industries I cited and the financial industry is that Best Buy’s, Safeway’s, and Regal’s core business is unregulated. How they make money-what products they sell, at what price, to whom-is unregulated. No one controls their inventory levels. No one says that they have to sell “X” percent of product to “Y” demographic group. No one has sued Best Buy to lower their price for TVs sold to “the poor”. No one has forced Safeway to sell its New York steak for the same price as ground chuck in economically disdavantaged neighborhoods. And the MPAA ratings are established by the move industry with no government interference at all.
Banks, on the other hand, have federally mandated capital requirements. They have been sued for practices that may or may not be redlining. Banks do not have full control of their core business practices. That’s the type of regulation that I was referring to.
Wait, from the story:
“So President Obama’s claim that the “failed theories of the last eight years” have gotten us “into this fix in the first place” is simply not true.”
Actually, it’s EXACTLY the failed theories of the last X years that have gotten us into this fix. It’s just that it’s Obama’s and his buddies’ failed theories that are responsible.
So he kind of found the truth, inadvertently. Even the blind squirrel finds an acorn, and all that.
Well, which is it, are the evil Republicans responsible because they wanted to extend homeownership as broadly as possible, or are the responsible Republicans evil because they don’t care about extending homeownership as broadly as possible?
We’ve been through this all before, and will be through it all again and again likely for the rest of our lives. In my opinion, Wehner indulges in self-interested apportioning of blame, but his desire to defend Bush Administration policy against one-sided criticism coming from our new highest levels is quite understandable.
Chuck, don’t be so foolish. Yes, the “gold” in my example would be collateral. Doesn’t make your “blame the poor people who bought houses” argument any less asinine. Especially when the people I blame are the people tasked with determining, reasonably, the future value of that collateral. Which would be real estate, in the “actual world you are oblivious to.”
It’s a little painful to have to spoon-feed you information which should be so obvious. to such an educated man like yourself But here’s a simple math problem that may clear it up for you. Add up all the real estate, even at at its then-estimated value, that these evil poor people and minorities promised to pay for, and ruined your life of wealthy awesomeness. Does it equal the hundreds of billions of dollars lost by investment banks?
Wait- it doesn’t? I wonder how that could have happened…
#47
Just rewind to 1971,and fast forward 38 years. You’ll find enough failed theories to fill an Encyclopedia. Please compare the size of our money supply(it used to be called M3)in 1971,to its size in 2009. Check inflation from 1971-2009. What more is there to say? It took a mere 38 years to beome insolvant as a nation.
CK McLeod:
Jesus, no. Why does everyone think I blame republicans? Democrats voted for deregulation too. I mostly blame greed. What I DO NOT do is blame this entire mess on the actual people who are, or soon will be, in foreclosure. You’d have to be very, very small-minded to do that.
It upsets that people have the audacity to blame it on people who had very, very little to do with the collapse, and are simultaneously stupid enough to think we’ll believe it.
It may be the case that I overestimate the stupidity, of course.
Sane people are willing to admit that some will take advantage of others. But constructing a regulatory structure that impedes and penalizes the innocent and honest in the guise of protecting the weak from the unscrupulous not only doesn’t work, it’s wrong. I defy you to verify one instance of death or sickness prevented by a warning label on a package of cigarettes or a bottle of beer. Of course, no one can prove a negative and that’s the point. The regulation is nonsensical. In fact, that’s a great example. Teens can’t legally smoke or buy cigarettes but any teen that wants to finds a way to smoke. And the utopians feel good about themselves. What do I care if the neighbor teen smokes? It’s none of my business. I don’t care what he eats either. He can gargle trans fats, for all I care.
I’m not in favor of elderly women flushing their social security checks through the slot machines of Indian casinos but it’s a free country. And I don’t care if they pay too much for their house or don’t make the payment, either. Isn’t it amazing that even the restricted form of capitalism that we operate under can allow numbskulls to not only survive but prosper to an astounding degree. But the utopians are never satisfied.
52
chuck martel Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 2:13 PM
Sane people are willing to admit that some will take advantage of others. But constructing a regulatory structure that impedes and penalizes the innocent and honest in the guise of protecting the weak from the unscrupulous not only doesn’t work, it’s wrong
that why Madoff prospered,it was wrong to protect his victims. the SEC knew that and obeyed a “higher” calling.
#46
I’ll go on record as being for laissez-faire.
Kilgore-
There’s plenty of blame to go around, and the people who bought houses they never could afford and are now getting foreclosed on are getting their share of it.
I graduated from high knowing how to calculate the prinical and interest on a loan. I’ll blame just about any high school grad who took out a loan that was clearly beyond his means to pay off under a traditional 30 year loan and is being foreclosed on. “Everybody’s doing it” doesn’t cut it as an excuse with my five year old, and it shouldn;t with an adult either.
#55
There’s a silver lining here. When the inflation rate skyrockets, that will end the forclosures. we will also be able to pay off China easily. We’ll send them a $3Trillion dollar bill,and tell them to keep the change.
Chuck-
I’d say I’m for regualtion that establishes standards and oppsed to regulation that enforces outcomes.
I’m in favor of food safety laws; maintenance requirements for commercial aircraft; margin and lending limits.
I’m opposed to stuff like the CRA, recent minimum wage hikes, CAFE, etc.
A community of 100 people can be largely unregulated because everyone knows everyone, and the society can easily punish transgressions. As the society grows, dealings are on a less personal level. Guilds and trade organizations can lend credibility, but these are self policing and do not have the force of law.
Regulation lets me have a reasonable expectation of being able to get on a plane on one side of the country, live for a week in a place I’ve never been, and return home without little fear of being robbed, or getting food poising, or dying in a crash somewhere along the way.
#56 – Isn’t that part of the negotiation that’s going on here in fact, if not in so many words? The same thing could be said for all of our debts and deferred obligations. We’re blackmailing everyone, including our own people, holding the world financial system and all of the expectations, habits, preferences, and privileges it entails hostage while demanding that all of their savings and real assets undergo effective devaluation, either through realtime market discounting or through deferred inflation. The Stimulus-Response Bill, TARP II, and other legislation – including the entire Liberal Progressive Wish List – represents a delaying tactic, including whatever chance one wishes to attribute to the “system” righting itself despite our best efforts to strangle it with debt. Righting itself would not necessarily equate with any near term reconcialition of the world’s balance sheets – it might merely consist of whatever combination of mathematical sleight-of-hand, wealth creation or appropriation or in many instances annihilation, and re-structuring enables us to finance the next ten, twenty, sixty years more or less with the same methods we’ve financed the last sixty years.
Is what you’re saying that as the laws of economics play themselves out,our best and brightest will use every tool&trick that they can garner to slow down the inevitable? I agree 100% with that. Germany,in the Twenties, devalued their currency to in order to pay back their impossible debts. That decision bankrupted the German working class,bankrupted France,England, America,and was a major force in a worldwide Depression. Then came War,total destruction of Germany. Then they were rebuilt,by the victors,and have the #4 Economy on earth today. All this in less than a Century. It’s too bad that our lords of the Universe didn’t understand that the laws of economics like mathematics is inexorable. They could have seriously taken Smith or Von Mises as the basis of our economics,but then you can’t have the fun of financing enormous projects like War or the Great Society with debt,and that’s no fun. Even the poor Soviet Union,insolvant in 1989, is in a new ball game now. We spent a lot of money to WIN the cold war;victory is tasting not so sweet right now.
Victory is still greatly preferable to the alternatives, in my view, RCAR. Not in yours?
The question before us, if we’re agreed on the overall shape of the predicament if not all of its details, is which group in a position to bring the whole house of cards down will act – and when and why and how – if ever. Baby boomers watching their lifetime’s wealth evaporate… again… worse than ever? Chi-coms? Russian oligopolists? Euro revanchists? Post-Obama youth? Dr Evil? What other leading candidates are there?
#61
The ‘intelligentsia” is most often the trigger group for big upheavals. So I’m looking at the Fringe groups on the far right or left being the torch bearers.
#61,”61
CK MacLeod Says:
February 13th, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Victory is still greatly preferable to the alternatives, in my view, RCAR. Not in yours?
I guess what I was trying to say in reference to the Cold War,it looks like they brought us down with them. We were so much stronger than them economically,that we lasted 20 years,badly wounded,before our insolvancy. The financing of the Vietnam War with debt,was a heavy blow to our economy,plus we financed “the great Society” with more debt at the same. time. Very reckless economic decisions,some would say,”fateful”.
#39
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What happens in Monopoly? Everyone starts out even, with equal bankrolls and equal chances at success. And one person ends up owning everything. So it goes with laissez-faire economics.
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You must have been on the crew writing the stimulus bill, stayed up too late, drank too much coffee. Comparing the twenty-first century global economy to the game Monopoly is so silly that I bet you were praying that no one would notice or bring it up but I just can’t resist. Geez, where to begin? First of all, Monopoly is a zero-sum game, unlike reality. In reality, if you won all the hotels, I could build more. In real life, wealth is created, thirty years ago no one owned a cell phone, now every one has one, an enormous amount of wealth in terms of both monetary and utilitarian value, where there was none before. And one person ends up owning everything? In the real world, who would that be?
Even from here I can see Nadehzda Krupskaya’s socialist lipstick on your collar.
Is there any credibility to the story that what started this crisis was a financial terrorist attack on our banking institutions? Considering that Hussein Obama gave a freudian slip when he warned of an October surprise, Hussein appears criminally culpable.