Meet the Press 9/25/2011 -- Education failure and the welfare state

On Meet the Press this morning the topic was education. But, before the panel discussion on education, David Gregory interviewed Michael Bloomberg. The Bloomberg interview was not enlightening, but one aspect is worth mentioning to shed light on Centrist double-talk which results from a lack of a principled core. Bloomberg correctly identified the current lack of economic expansion and hiring as a failure of confidence due to businesses not knowing what's coming next with either taxes or regulations, and consumer lack of confidence due to the uncertainty of the labor market -- but, after saying this, Bloomberg was uncritical of the current administration, saying at least they are trying things even if they don't work. Bloomberg, because he maintains a middle-road approach, fails to recognize that it's the "trying things" that have eroded confidence, because these "things" being tried are interventions in the market which create uncertainty regarding what "things" will be tried next.

The roundtable discussion on education was also unenlightening, with guests Donna Shalala, Bob Bennett, Tavis Smiley and the Shriver fellow who believes we need inspiration. The guests proferred the same old platitudes that I've heard for decades regarding education -- we need more money, more government involvement, more help for inner city kids, more parental involvement, better teachers, better preparation for the workforce. The education problem in America has been talked to death and a mountain of money has been thrown at education, yet education remains in a state of crisis, especially in large cities. There was the obligatory call from Bennett for trying what works and eliminating what doesn't work, but this never seems to happen -- the same old system is poked and prodded and gouged and tweaked, but the system survives and remains an obstacle to successful education outcomes. It's time to talk seriously about the damaging effects of the welfare state on education and to look at private solutions. Until the nation demands systemic changes both to the welfare state and education, education will not change. This is the direction that's resisted and it's what prevents real solutions from developing locally. As long as the federal government is directing education, political games will prevent real solutions.

Morning Joe 9/12/2011 -- 9/11 and a bipartisanship moment

On Morning Joe today John Meacham, Joe Conason, and, later, Tavis Smiley were the guests on the first segment. Scarborough and co. had to first get the Rich Perry-bashing out of the way and establish Mitt Romney as the valid candidate. Then there was talk about the 9/11 memorial and the bipartisan moment between Bush and Obama. Tavis Smiley ruined Scarborough's bipartisan reverie by saying Bush lied to the American people about WMDs and Iraq. A big argument ensued with Smiley backing off the "lied" comment but maintaining that the Bush administration misled the country. Scarborough rightfully recalled Democrat complicity in the focus on Sadam Hussein and Iraq as a terrorist threat. They all missed the fundamental issues.

First, this President-centered analysis of 9/11 and post 9/11 is misleading in itself. Bush's reactions after 9/11 were motivated by the unknown and information he received from intelligence around the world. Responding to 9/11 is something that everyone can understand, but being in Iraq and Afghanistan ten years later is a systemic failure.

The 9/11 memorial is not about Bush or Obama, but about an attack that many private citizens felt and experienced and responded to in many different ways. The only ones worth mentioning are the ones who actually did the hard work of dealing with the tragedy upclose. If anything, 9/11 speaks to the spirit of the American people, not to bipartisan relations between two Presidents.

Scarborough represents a growing center in politics which desires cooperation in the political realm to get things done -- strong leadership from DC. This center has been shifted far enough in a statist direction to satsify the establishment -- the status quo allows sufficient government intervention so that government can now centrally control if they smartly manage public opinion. The criticism of Obama right now from the center and the Left is that he's hit a lull in management and planning, but, after his speech, the center and left are coming around and pushing Obama forward to take charge and follow through. It's Obama's style to pretend he's responding to what the public desires, and not that pretension is that the public wants government to intervene in the economy even more than they have. It's a game of perception and manipulation -- this adminsitration knows nothing else -- they assume they have to fool the public to get what they want.

Those further to the Left like Smiley want Obama to become more publically radical, pushing the progressive agenda more vigorously, but Obama knows that the "center" is now sufficient to move forward, plus he has to get reelected. With a growing opposition forming among independents, Obama has to be careful that he doesn't push too far Left too fast.

The narrative going forward is that it's time for Republicans and Democrats to work together to further consolidate the center and protect the status quo by investing in the economy, making America competitive with China, making the rich pay their fair share and creating jobs. In the statist world of the political realm, this is no time for radical moves to the Left or the Right, therfore, Perry must be destroyed, along with the Tea Party, then advancements in healthcare and financial regulation and environmental regulation must be protected -- after the next election, more statist advancements can be made, but for now it's about consolidating the center which has shifted further Left despite efforts in the private realm to stop government encroachment.

The center is the new illusion of wise compromise and responsible government action. The center expects to drag the far Left and far Right along, or marginalize them so they are ineffective. 2012 will be an interesting election year.

Meet the Press 4/17/2011 -- more budget madness

On Meet the Press, David Gregory started out interviewing Tim Geithner. I don't know why these shows bother interviewing the President's toadies, because all they're going to say is what the President wants them to say, and we've heard plenty from Obama. Geithner dimissed all criticism of Obama and his speech attacking Republicans as political gamesmanship, then assured everyone listening that Obama has the perfect approach to getting the deficit problem under control. I also wonder why Meet the Press producers think we're interested in hearing what Geithner has to say about solutions to the budget problem when he was instrumental in creating the problem by supporting bailouts and stimulus, plus the fact that Geithner has been a part of the Federal Reserve mindset that misdirected capital and manipulated the economy into a crisis.

The roundtable discussion presented the same problem with Alan Greenspan being asked questions about problems he helped create during his long stint at the top of the Fed. You would think that Meet the Press would have guests on who didn't help create the problems we're now addressing. Of course, not one person suggested the Fed is responsible in large part for high deficits and debt, high unemployment and economic stagnation. Tavis Smiley probably made the only honest point, aside from Mike Lee, that judging each problem the nation faces by how it affects the coming 2012 election is not really pertinent to whether government officials do what they think is right.

There was a statement made by one of the guests, and I can't remember which, that the "free market" has not been sufficient, and that now government must do great things, or something to that effect. Mike Lee disagreed and promoted the private sector as capable of achieving great things if government gets out of the way.

Regardless of Obama's political game of progressive dressed up as a moderate, Lee is right that the issues boil down to the conflict between these two visions -- statism or limited government -- and that Democrats are supporting statism, while Republicans, at least some, are supporting limited government. Statism brought us a housing bubble and financial collapse caused primarily by the Federal Reserve centrally planning the economy through monetary policy, helped by government social engineering aimed at increasing home ownership for those with lower incomes and not so good credit. The problems are much wider and deeper, but this basic misdirection caused by statism, stacked on top of decades of statist schemes, has perverted the market and led us to the brink of collapse. And, guess what the political class blames -- the "free market". Holy Orwellian crap, Batman!

ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour

Discussion of economic and politics in America has become so pitifully empty of meaningful content that it hurts to watch programs like This Week.

Paul Krugman and Tavis Smiley were on the Roundtable discussion, and both were promoting the smear campaign against the Tea Party and Tea Party candidates. George Will is the only one who tried to make any sense of what's happening by stating that the Tea Party movement is a reaction to centralized government which is out of control. Amanpour, the host, doesn't know what questions to ask, or won't ask them, and the guests are not volunteering any meaningful content, just partisan talking points and trite repetitions of the problems we face -- there were no analyses of the causes of the problems or solutions to the problems.

This is our problem, everyone is talking around the fundamental problems. The only feeble atttempt at a solution was when Smiley and Krugman agreed with Obama that sources of ad campaigns need to be identified, but this isn't a solution -- it's a symptom of the fundmental problem. Smiley contended that these political ads influence election campaigns, but, so what?

We have a right in this country to exress our ideas, and it's the ideas that count, not the source of the ideas. The present push to indentify contribution sources to ad campaigns is a thinly veiled attempt to silence opposition to Democrat policies. This type of political pressure to silence dissent is dangerous, and has no place in a free society.

The more the progressives are opposed, the more they reveal their true colors. They are using "powerful billioniares" in all their misinformation campaigns as a cynical, populist tool to create the impression that evil libertarian/conservative types and wealthy foreigners are trying to destroy safety nets for the poor and middle class -- then in the next breath they criticize Tea Party types for being conspiracy nuts.

I think we can now distinguish the nuts from those with legitimate concerns.