Meet the Press 8/21/2011 -- Stimulus, and more stimulus

Savannah Guthrie substituted for David Gregory this morning on Meet the Press, and she started out interviewing Robert Gibbs and Mitch Daniels. Guthrie did a fairly good job interviewing Gibbs, but the question is why have on a low-value guest like Gibbs, especially during a time when viewers are looking for objective, smart political analysis. Gibbs is a political hack and Obama flunky, and his opinions and spin are useless to the national political debate. Gibbs answered every criticism of Obama by denying what was brought up is a problem and saying that Obama outlines ideas every day of his presidency, Obama concentrates on jobs everyday of his presidency and Obama has offered a plan, it's just those damn obstructionist Republicans and headwinds that put a crink in the recovery Obama started from an economic point which was the worst in our history. I say Gibbs is a low-value guest because he offers nothing but regurgitated Obama-excuses and propaganda. The producers of Meet the Press have to know that Gibbs is going to cheerlead for Obama and that Guthrie is not going to respond in the only way appropriate -- Bullshit!

The Mitch Daniels interview was better in that Daniels is somewhat more objective than Gibbs, but we learned nothing new -- Daniels did analyze the current economic situation in smart fashion by alluding to the systemic changes needed in government -- tax and regulatory reform.

The roundtable was pretty predictable, also, with Peggy Noonan, Harold Ford, E.J. Dionne and Maria Bartiroma discussing the Republican field and Obama's performance so far. But to take a President-centric approach to our problems is poor analysis. Presidents can only do so much in this statist system which is set on automatic spending on an out of control welfare state, plus, no one talked about our mideast entanglements. Dionne, of course, wants the President to stimulate, stimulate and then stimulate some more -- he, like most liberals and progressives, believe that demand is our problem, and if you just give people enough money to spend, things will get better. As Bartiroma and Noonan, and even Harold Ford, pointed out, businesses are uncertain of the tax and regulatory future.

Businesses are not going to expand on short term tweaks to the economy, and new businesses will not arise on short-term stimulus and temporary demand. Someone considering a business start-up is not going to pull the trigger because Obama has stimulated demand through 2012 -- existing businesses are not going to expand and hire on temporary demand that fades when the stimulus stops.

Businesses will take a risk if they know their costs and are reasonably confident that government will not tax and regulate them out of business in a few years.

Of course, there was the obligatory denigration of current Republican candidates, but it's way too early for the 2012 elections to take up a full program when America faces a debt problem, a global economic crisis, entanglements in the mideast, high unemployment, a failing public education system and growing dissatisfaction with government in general, not just the present and temporary president. 

Another example of liberal misguidedness

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/06/AR2010050602373.html

If liberals don't want to be called statists, then they need to quit writing stuff like this. E.J. Dionne has written an article which exemplifies the mindset of many liberals -- it's not that government is too powerful and needs to be limited, government, according to the likes of Dionne, when being controlled by a Democrat like Obama, just needs to explain the good it does -- government is not doing too much, it's not doing enough and it's not explaining to the public how helpful it actually is and can be when it's doing a good job. I see.

Dionne explains some of the duties which are appropriate to government, and most people don't have any problem when government is policing well, protecting the border and settling disputes rationally in courts, but then Dionne goes on to reveal the true difference -- he says a good government should do something about too much self-interest. This is amazing considering the self-interest of cronyism and political power -- and what makes this self-interest different is that it's backed by a gun, which makes it more like robbery. It's not the job of the government to manage the economy, and despite Dionne relying on one quote from Dick Armey about a "dumb" government, which he was comparing in relation to running the economy, most limited government advocates want government to do a good job with their limited responsibilities.

The heart of the problem with modern liberals and progressives is that most are neither -- the liberals and progressives are libertarians, those who call for freedom, dynamism, innovation, creativty, international non-intervention which will transition militarism to commerce and free trade -- it's progressive to strive for the end of corporate/special interest welfare and the establishment of true equality of opportunity, to separate State and Economy, to free marriage from government control, to protect person and property from the greedy clutches of powerful State interests.

This is the progressivism which was eventually rejected by conservative forces who reacted in panic to freedom at the end of the 19th century and used the State to return to collectivism and elite control. Later I will post Murray Rothbard's ideas on this subject -- he presented the case much better than I have.

More left propaganda about right propaganda

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502756.html

E.J. Dionne is very concerned that the administration is overreacting to rightwing extremist propaganda. The situation is almost as bad as Dan Rather, Sharpton/Tawana Brawley, Prof Gates, Journolist and decades of MSM propaganda. But, if you ignore the left's history of propaganda and twisted journalism, you can make a case that Fox has ruined a once virtuous media and has caused the administration to veer from it's path of objectivity and calm reason. If you ignore Mel Gibson's racist comments, you can make a case that  he's the most non-prejudiced actor in Hollywood. It's all in what you include and exclude that's makes a good point.

Mark Thompson, a self-proclaimed "libertarian" at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, says he has a hard time not agreeing with Dionne. Oh, yeah, Dionne is very convincing, if you exclude his bias. Thompson is a libertarian, if you exclude his ideas regarding conservatives, liberals, libertarians, government and political philosophy.