Morning Joe 5/14/2012 -- How the political realm corrodes America

While Americans aren't looking, or while they think they are being charitable with taxpayers' money, or while many Americans are using government to gain advantages, our government grows into a hydra-headed monster in a great political realm that has infected every nook and cranny of our lives and our economy, and eventually every corner of the globe as a global force of intervention.

Americans have difficulty imagining anything outside the political realm. The Morning Joe crew discussed Obama's new ad showing Romney at Bain Capital and how some of the companies he bought went out of business and jobs were lost. The implication of the ad was even when steel manufacturing is no longer viable in certain areras of America, Romney should have taken Bain's assets and kept the jobs intact although the company was losing money. So, eventually, under this scenario, Bain would have gone bankrupt, and that would have reduced the overall effort in the capitalist system to save companies that do have a chance to survive, which would contribute to more lost jobs, not less.

But, obviously, not many people can any longer think through these situations, or at least the Obama administration is betting people can't think through these scenarios and will hate Romney for firing people and profittng off their joblessness. Joe Scarborough championed the capitalist perspective, but then he said something that placed him right back into the center of political ugliness which has a corrosive effect on the nation. Scarborough said the trick is to champion capitalism but show that Romney has no compassion for the people who had to be fired. At first, Scarborough jokingly ribbed the administration for not highlighting their accomplishments and why they deserve a second term, but obvioulsy he was only joking, because his conclusion was that the administration should smear Romney as an uncaring person who has no conception of what it's like to be unemployed. So, Scarborough didn't have a problem with the ad because it treated capitalism unfairly, so much, but because it didn't focus mainly on Romney as an uncaring, rich, capitalist pig.

The political class can't see outside politics and the Machiavellian practices which move further and further from integrity and honorable actions. I would love to see Romney's charitable givings compared to Joe and Mika, Obama, the Morning Joe Panel or any other Democrat operatives or partisan hacks who constantly smear Romney as uncaring and out of touch. These critics of Romney talk about compassion, but I would love to see what they give -- what they actually do to help anyone in poverty. I have criticized Romney, but only on his reluctance to promote my economic positions, not because I have looked into his heart to divine cold emptiness.

The political class is judging who will control the most powerful government in world by what the Ruler will do for them, and because Romney is more associated with the private sector, the political class wants him defeated any way possible, and they will destroy him by any methods. This is the discussion Morning Joe should have delved in, because this direction is what will destroy America. And, if a truly vicious political machine eventually gains complete control, the soft pundits doing their snark routines on Morning Joe will be among the first to be dismissed as used-up idiots.

As I always say, reality always wins

I've been writing posts about modern liberals for the past week, but, as I've suggested, real liberalism no longer exists. I've taken jabs at our era's intellectuals who call themselves liberals but are no more than State apologists. Back when the Church ruled most of the world, intellectuals worked for the Church and helped guide the hoi polloi, but now that the State is all-powerful, intellectuals work for, or in service of, the State and attempt to convince the public of the benevolence of the ruling few. The political elite have it made, or they've had it made, but times they are a'changin'.

Most of the voters who work to keep Democrats in control of congress are not liberals -- they aren't ideologically motivated -- they are motivated by what government can give them or how government can protect them from competition by rigging the game in their favor. Democrats care very little for economic reality, and when the economy is growing and new wealth is created by entrepreneurs and producers in the private sector, the political class can focus on political cleverness and how propaganda and such can help create perception. Pundits in media love to discuss the politics of situations, though, very few in media understand how the economy works.

Now, in the global economy, in 2012, things are different and we're entering a different time than the 50s, 70s, 90s, etc. Most on the Left dismiss economic concerns which come from those who are really neither Right nor Left, but just common sense thinkers who understand economics and reality. The ideologues on the Right who are mostly Austrian School libertarians have been the intellectual opposition to the State apologists, but we're few in number, and media doesn't really give our side a voice. Ron Paul, however, has gained some notice because his economic warnings from years back are coming to fruition.

Financial manipulation and stimulus can work for a while to fight off the consequences of economy-destroying State interventions, but not forever, and Keynes's "long run" is upon us. Most of the world has followed much the same path, with communist/socialist countries failing and switching to State Capitalism in the 80s and 90s. What has passed for capitalism has been embraced by Europe and Asia and even in South America, but it's not free markets that have ruled. Far from free markets, statism has been the norm, a form of a Merchant-State or State Capitalism or Mixed Economy or Social Democracy or whatever one wants to call the mongrel economies. The common thread has been state intervention in the economy and some level of central planning and management.

Now reality is hitting nation after nation, with central banks and the IMF trying to keep the schemes afloat. There are limits in reality and they must be adhered to in order to prevent crises. Regardless of the political cleverness of Democrats or the support they receive from media and universities and unions and minorities and women, etc., the policies of spend and tax are no longer viable -- they no longer work except to create some short-term perception of compassion and the possibility of security and stability.

America has a huge economy and it's an amazing force even in bad times, but with entitlements forcing us to face 60 to 70 trillion dollars in unfunded promises, it doesn't take an economist to realize that serious changes are necessary. In the midst of the crisis, Democrats, even the President, are proclaiming a calamity to welfare because Paul Ryan's budget is calling for less spending in the next 10 years but not a cut in the present spending amount. The spending will increase in the next 10 years under Ryan's budget, just not as much as without Ryan's budget. How can sane people call Ryan's plan social darwinism? We're spending at astronomically high amounts, and Ryan's budget calls for an increase in that high amount of spending for another decade. Maybe the public is not sane. What will it take to get people's attention? Democrats are in a bind. In an order to build a large power-base to gain power, they've had to create dependency among a large portion of the American people. Now, Democrats are forced to admit that the spending can't continue, yet they have no answers of their own. There will be protests in the streets when the cuts are forced on the public. 

I suspect many of the modern statists understand that interventions/regulations/taxes have stagnated the economy, and that they must make some drastic changes in order to generate economic growth and new wealth creation, but they can't capitulate to the libertarian call for a free market. This would be an admission that their statist policies have failed, but they have to do something or they'll lose power. It's a quandary -- admitting the Koch brothers are right? Oh my. Likely, Obama will pretend he's been a free market advocate all along and he'll call for more relaxation of regulations and other gimmicks he thinks are free market enough to get the economy going again.

This playing at economic liberty will not work. We have to apply the principles of limited government and a free market in earnest, and we have to make drastic systemic changes. Otherwise it might take collapse before we make the changes. I've said this over and over, as have other libertarian, Austrian school types -- so far, we've called it pretty close, but not because we're so smart -- it's because reality always wins.

Reality always wins, and reality can be cruel. Let's hope we don't deny what's right in front us, because when reality wins this time, we're going to be very big losers.

Beware of the political entrepreneur

http://mises.org/daily/5963/The-Vampire-Economy-and-the-Market

Fascism is often misunderstood, basically because of the association with Hitler and Germany during WWII, but fascism has a meaning -- basically, it's, as is written in the above article, socialism under the guise of capitalism. The article linked above from Mises does a good job of explaining how this form of statism is unviable -- although we call our system a mixed economy, we should be very concerned that we aren't headed for complete authoritarian capitalism.

The progressive dilemma

Yesterday on Melissa Harris Perry's show the panel talked about doing more for the out of work poor, and the working poor, making vague claims we should do more. One lady they interviewed, to give voice to the poor, said she has access to welfare, to food stamps, but she needs more -- it's just not enough. What is more and enough? No one said. They never say. The progressive statists simply say we need to take more money from those who have it and give it to those who don't have it.

But even if this is done, it will not help like the progressives and recipients think it will help. We're also running into the natural limits of what can be done. Our educational system is not improving in the ways we need it to improve to prepare kids in poverty for knowledge jobs. Even the good paying jobs like plumbing, electricians and mechanics require more knowledge than poor kids are receiving.

51% of the families in poverty are single-mother homes, and that one parent is too strapped to prepare her children for success once they become young adults. The war on drugs has made dealing drugs profitable, so young people in poverty have an incentive to sell drugs, not to go to school in unruly environments where the grownups have given up trying to accomplish anything positive.

Giving these families more money will at least help some families temporarily. For other families in poverty, the extra money will only help the adult who spends it on more drugs. The families it helps temporarily will not change fundamentally -- they will eat a little better, and perhaps dress a little better, but the extra assistance will never be enough to solve the problem of poverty. The answer to poverty is internal motivation, opportunity, the will to take the opportunity to gain knowledge, then the actions necessary to make something happen. No one likes to look at the reality of poor families from the perspective of what the families have to do to solve the problem of poverty, only from the perspective of government giving more assistance. Government now has assistance programs designed to teach poor people how to escape from poverty, but most people in poverty can't make it from A to Z. There's no workable program to take a kid from point A to Z. Maybe a few make it through, and there are surely success stories, but the majority don't make it, in spite of the programs and the money spent on poverty. 

It's not about blame -- it's about reality and limits. Progressives are doomed to failure as long they simply demand more money to expand welfare benefits. If progressives aren't looking at results, cause and effect, and what will happen when we reach the limits of giving, then they will become wild-eyed fanatics, unrealistically demanding the goose to lay more golden eggs after the goose has laid her last egg.

Surely we need to focus on education, opportunity, incentives, economic growth and wealth creation. Only in a dynamic, growing economy will we make any progress reducing poverty, so all the anti-capitalist rhetoric, blaming the 1% and begging government to place businesses under a bigger thumb, is counter-productive.

Obama says once again that capitalism doesn't work

In another speech Obama says that capitalism didn't work before the New Deal, and it didn't work before his presidency -- I suppose Obama believes capitalism broke out again in 2000, and he had to beat it back down. This is complete ignorance or total deception, and both disqualify him as a President, especially when he thinks its his duty to create another New Deal. Read Murray Rothbard, Thomas E.Woods, Allan Metzer, Milton Friedman or any of the other non-progressives who've written about what really happened in the 1920s, then during the New Deal, then in the recent housing crash and you will see how far off Obama's comments are -- you will see why Obama is not fit to be President.

How do polls show Obama still ahead in a national race? How can Obama be re-elected, no matter who's running against him? Who believes him when he says he has turned around the economy? There can't be that many dumb Americans. I'm sorry to call Americans dumb just because they believe the President, but Obama is so obviously wrong, and it's so obvious that he's spreading propaganda, how can a majority favor him?

Unions aren't that big, and minorities are surely not all in lockstep -- all women can't have turned blindly progressive. There has to be a great majority in America who see through Obama's propaganda to make it impossible for him to be reelected, yet we hear everyday that the polls for Obama are favorable. How can this be? Is America lost?

Capitalism is the greatest economic system the world has ever known, responsible for such enormous economic growth and expansion of wealth in such a short period of time, historically speaking, that it's amazing, yet, Obama says it failed in the 20s and failed again in 2008. Government interventionism perverted capitalism, and Obama is calling that perversion caused by government capitalism? So what will replace this perverted capitalism? More government intervention? Obama will surely say it's a new kind of capitalism made compassionate by government oversight and regulation, but any student of government intervention will find this political answer laughable. Americans have to wake up. This is not about electing a Republican President -- this is about ending statism. We're faced with the most important decision we've faced in a long, long time -- will we go forward and tweak our statist system, or will we dismantle statism, take the government shackles off capitalism and allow a true free market to emerge?