I recently argued that the Obama administration is going to do everything it can to block an economic recovery and keep Americans in a state of economic insecurity. (Democrats do better when the public is in fear of their jobs, while Republicans do well when the public falls for the “national security” line.)
During the New Deal, FDR and the Democrats benefited by claiming that the USA had a “mature economy” that no longer could grow like it once did. The question is this: What will be the roadmap used by this administration to blocking recovery? It cannot be seen as outright bungling by policymakers, i.e. bailing out the black holes known as AIG and GM (and soon-to-be GE). Those firms are useful in that they provide a vehicle for destroying resources, but that still is not good enough to keep Obama on top.
It is obvious to me that the Democrats will use (1) environmental regulations to fuel the “sky is falling” fears, and that means that producers will have to devote trillions of dollars of new capital for anti-pollution devices, clearly destroying hopes of new growth; and by claiming (2) that our “economic model” is “unsustainable” (which is true if the “economic model” is based on the Fed feeding the machine, but that is not what the Democrats are saying).
Today, Thomas Friedman in his New York Times column has provided that roadmap the Democrats and Obama will be needing. He writes:
Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”
We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …
We can’t do this anymore.
“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.
“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior,” added Romm. “But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate …’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”
We have to understand that he is NOT speaking of unsustainability in the way that we have spoken, of malinvestments and the like. No, he is saying that a market economy is unsustainable. Now, when the market is combined with bad government policies (Do I repeat myself?) like water policies in the West and similar policies that clearly waste scarce resources.
No, this is fundamentally different. Once the public is convinced that we have to live with high unemployment and economic insecurity, Obama and his people can govern forever. There is no way that the policies that Obama and Congress are trotting out can result in anything but double-digit unemployment and near-zero economic growth. I repeat, there is no way for those policies to have any different effects.
Furthermore, by having the press serve as cheerleaders, and by preying on the minds of voters by telling them that we are in a “new era of social, economic, and environmental responsibility,” the game is over. I believe we need to frame our arguments in that vein.
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I’ve learned quite a bit from some of you posts in the past Mr. Anderson but insulting people who have honestly different views isn’t the best form of persuasion. Perhaps the President really believes what he’s selling.
I happen to be both a Libertarian and an Atheist. Having been on the receiving end of intolerance I think another approach to getting your point across would be more effective.
“I believe we need to frame our arguments in that vein.”
If the “game is over” then I believe we need to find personal means of sheltering from the inevitable collapse rather than arguing with fools.
I believe you hit the nail on the head Mr. Anderson. Welcome to the new Third World.
Destiny of America
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Will Americans Forget Their Classical Liberalism Tradition?
I do not believe that in our modern world of instant communication and international awareness that it is possible for the attitude of: ‘Once the public is convinced that we have to live with high unemployment and economic insecurity’ will be maintainable for very long. There are places in the world (especially when they write-off as losses the debt owed to them by the U.S.) where prosperity will be the way of life and Americans will wonder why, and find answers that rekindle the love of liberty in their hearts.
As that occurs the liars will be thrown out!
That is one of several alternative pathways to a classical liberalism society that lies ahead of us.
What Thomas Friedman spouts in his commentary is a perversion of environmentalism from a concept that should be based on individual self-ownership and property rights to one that emphasizes resource sustainability and depletion. In addition, Friedman’s understanding of resource sustainability and depletion is scientifically and economically lacking. Was there not another Thomas, Thomas Malthus, who made similar claims roughly 200 years ago that have been shown to be absolutely false?
And of course, we are no longer dealing with global warming but “climate change.†This change in terminology should starkly indicate to anyone with even the most basic critical thinking abilities and knowledge of climate history that the movement is politically driven and based on junk science. Friedman and like-minded “scientists,†politicians, and bureaucrats are out to control human economic activity for their own benefit, and their use of garbage environmentalism is an important means to achieve this end. The concept of man-caused climate change has become the basis of a new fascism and socialism.
Similar to the establishment consensus regarding monetary economics, banking, and the causes of the current economic crisis, what Friedman and the many like him peddle regarding resource sustainability and depletion is generally scientifically unsound and lacks a basic understanding of economic analysis.
Mr Anderson,
In the current crisis I believe that you may be giving politicians far too much credit as to what they can and cannot control. Sure, their policies can make some difference at the margins but every one or two hundred years forces evolve that are much more powerful than politician’s ability to control them. We are now in such a time. As the present crisis evolves President Obama and his team will be more like cheerleaders and hand holders than saviors.
Thomas Friedman is correct in saying that this time we have hit a wall. The wall may but more substantial and hardened then he realizes.
The converging disasters of a financial system meltdown, climate change, and peak oil, all occurring within a narrow time frame, will overwhelm the politician’s and society’s ability to deal with them. It is unlikely that economic growth can ever again be ramped up to pre-crash standards.
In order to survive people will largely have to take matters into their own hands and adapt to a more austere life of small scale local enterprise and of community organization. For many big cities will become death traps.
We are now experiencing large scale enterprises in an accelerating state of collapse. Consider the state of AIG, GM, and even GE. The collapsing entities includes governments. Iceland may have been the first to go but certainly will not be the last.
Ireland, Latvia, Spain, even Russia and the US
are on the endangered species list.
Obama and the Democrats, along with the rest of us, are merely along for the ride. Events have already spun out of control.
I’ve been wondering how Obama planned to make the case for a second term after destroying our economy. Thanks for pointing this out before it hits us.
Playing to liberals’ religious belief that god (mother nature) is punishing us for our sins. It’s like Jimmy Carter all over again, but with green drapes and more dangerous.
But Obama still needs to control communication on the radio and the internet to succeed.
Dan: “but insulting people who have honestly different views isn’t the best form of persuasion”
I’ve read this twice and I can’t locate the insult. Could you point it out?
You seem to be calling Mr. Anderson a racist or some kind of bigot for having the opinion that Obama’s policies and stated goals are bad for America. Perhaps you are offended that he believes Obama is purposefully choosing to destroy the last good parts of our economy. If so, argue it. Don’t throw back a not-so-veiled insult.
I will raise some points in support of Obama’s willful and pre-meditated acts against the economy: he was all ‘hope and vague change’ before the election. But since, he has changed to a message of ‘doom and gloom’ followed by the most irresponsible proclamations of ‘radical change’, ‘profit-free zones’, class warfare, and attacks on private property that ‘ought’ to make a ‘real’ Libertarian at least somewhat alarmed. The uncertainty these utterances have generated is, in my opinion, a major cause of the further stock market declines at a time when there are trillions of dollars just waiting on the side-line for some signal that maybe, just maybe, free-enterprise isn’t yet quite dead in America.
Instead, just this week, we hear, dictated to us, that the entire healthcare industry WILL be changed, quickly, and that while much of the change is unknown, the phrase ‘profit-free zone’ sends the signal that we better sell all stocks of any pharmaceuticals, insurance companies, or medical device makers we own, or suffer more losses in a sector that was one of the better ones in this economy.
Of course, in my opinion, it is even more insulting to Obama’s intelligence to say he honestly believes letting Congress come up with a seemingly random collection of wealth transfer payments, tax-cuts of little or no utility, and government spending of even less economic utility is going to turn the recession around. Or that Obama honestly believes that the foxes who ran this economy into a recession ought to be brought in to ‘manage’ it now. Or that he honestly believes socializing healthcare will be LESS of a drain on our economy, that socializing it will SPUR economic recovery! Now that’s just stupid.
I’m not sure who I have insulted. I did make the comment in an article I linked to this post that the
“Christian” leftists have declared that God is in favor of this economic “plan.” However, I said nothing about atheists and did not insult anyone else, except perhaps to question the wisdom of the Great Paul Krugman.
Like Jay I read Mr. Anderson’s article more than once looking for the alleged “insult”, never did find it or anything close…
However I did find the linking of our economic situation and “climate change”, or what ever it is being called at this moment, to be somewhat of a stretch–sort of a flailing about by the proponents of a crisis that has been pushed off the front pages, in an attempt to grab the coattails of the new front page news.
Unfortunately this will work, as politicians love imaginary hobgoblins that can be used to menace the population. Plus, if they can link even a casual relationship between any two, in a way that is almost guaranteed to result in whole greater than the sum of it’s parts, then more the better…
>”We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert who writes the indispensable blog climateprogress.org.
True, but not because of limited natural resources. The only reason the US and Europe had a hugh middle class for the last 50 years is that the other 2/3rds of the world didn’t. Does anyone reading this actually imagine a world economy where coffee pickers in Africa and Central America live in a 2000 square foot house, have 2 cars less than 5 years old and get 3 weeks paid vacation?
Imagine a future world where all the nasty work and physical labor is done with machines. people will only work as a hobby. Consumer goods will be generated by a computer in the wall. Does anyone reading this think that such a world will engender social equality?
No one the space ship of Capt. James T. Kirk seemed to work for wages yet everyone knew his social place. How can it be any other way?
Bill Gates has a house on Lake Washington. Off hand, no house on Lake Washington would sell for less than a million dollars – any legal building lot would go for more than a half million if there were any vacant building lots.
If all work was done by machine and no person on earth had to work for any consumer good, then how would living space on Lake Washington be allocated? You say the entire shoreline would be bulldozed and made into a public park? Then how would the residential property across the street from the Lake Washington Public Park be allocated?
My point? That there will always be a pecking order and a food chain no matter the economic system.
Billwald, I always love to read your logical fallacies because they allow me to grow my understanding of logic and argumentation – one learns by failure, that’s for sure. Case in point:
The only reason the US and Europe had a hugh[e] middle class for the last 50 years is that the other 2/3rds of the world didn’t.
This is called a non sequitur. There is no casual link between one fact and the other – and I am willing to bet the house you cannot show the casual link, you just assumed it. What you said makes as much sense as saying that the reason 1/2 the fish in the sea are big is because the other 1/2 are small. You may say they’re not connected, and I can say: so are your facts, in exactly the same manner.
Does anyone reading this actually imagine a world economy where coffee pickers in Africa and Central America live in a 2000 square foot house, have 2 cars less than 5 years old and get 3 weeks paid vacation?
This is an example of a loaded question – you assume that people think that economic progress means that everyone, regardless of how productive, should have as many possession as a typical person in the US. If I wanted to have those possessions, even if I lived in Africa, I would certainly not achieve them through coffee picking. But that’s not the argument in favor of free markets and free enterprise – the argument is that, even if I was a coffee picker, with freedom to pursue my interests, I can do something else.
Imagine a future world where all the nasty work and physical labor is done with machines. people will only work as a hobby. Consumer goods will be generated by a computer in the wall. Does anyone reading this think that such a world will engender social equality?
Again, this is a loaded question – what does social equality have to do with how goods are procured? To be more specific: What do YOU mean by ‘social equality’? Don’t just assume everybody knows what you’re talking about. “Social Equality” may be in itself a meaningless concept if you do not define it first.
My point? That there will always be a pecking order and a food chain no matter the economic system.
Using all that verbiage just to arrive at this point is, honestly, quite pointless. Besides this, your conclusion begs the question, because you assumed that your concept of ‘social equality’ is well understood in order to conclude it cannot be achieved. Well, that’s not fair: WHAT IS IT, first?
Outstanding post once again. Thank you=)
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