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Monday, August 31, 2009
Big Mistakes Were Made
Allan Meltzer assesses President Obama’s socialist sally.
Quote:
First, there is a strong political motivation to make this recession out to be worse than it actually is. The Obama administration wanted to make it appear as though it saved us from an incipient disaster, so it overstated its achievements. The White House also wanted to foist its huge “stimulus” program on the country in order to redistribute income. That pleased many Democrats, but did very little to restore growth…
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and the International Monetary Fund repeatedly proclaimed that more government spending was a necessity. Most economists now believe that the recession is expected to end before much of the government spending takes hold. And while the improvement in recent GDP data reflects a big increase in government spending, consumer spending declined again in the second quarter. The $787 billion of fiscal stimulus has done little for consumers. Keynesian economists always fail to recognize the powerful regenerative forces of the market economy. The financial press
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/31 at 11:17 PM
Economics • (0) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkNo Surprise For Those Who Listened
President Obama, as many others have noted, has a talent for giving misleading impressions.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/31 at 07:50 PM
Welfare-State Socialism • (0) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkMurder’s OK, But No Torture. We’re Liberals
To understand the grotesque hypocrisy of liberal-progressives we must view it from the perspective of their religion of socialism.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/31 at 05:55 PM
Tradition & Morality • (1) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkMassachusetts Leads the Way
To cut soaring medical care costs under its version of single-payer health insurance (which is partly the model for proposed Federal socialization of the healthcare industry), Massachusetts proposes to begin rationing healthcare via an arbitrary limit on spending.
A global budget for medical providers is a euphemistic term for the sort of rationing that the UK imposes under its national health system and what Canada does via its provincial budgets. Doctors and hospitals are told that they have a fixed amount of money available; it becomes their job to ration care among patients in order to fit within the budget.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/31 at 03:51 PM
Welfare-State Socialism • (0) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkSaturday, August 29, 2009
Big Bag-of-Wind Bernanke
The Record of the Federal Reserve
Quote:
From 1776 to 1912 (136 years), the value of the dollar, relative to the Consumer Price Index, increased by 11%. A dollar could buy 11% more goods in 1912 than in 1776…After the Fed’s creation, from 1913 to 2008 (95 years), the value of the dollar, relative to the Consumer Price Index, decreased by 95%. A dollar could buy 95% fewer goods in 2008 than in 1913. Thus, if in 1913, you sat on your savings pile of $1,000,000 for 95 years, it would then be worth only $50,000 in purchasing power…
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/29 at 03:25 PM
Economics • (5) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkFriday, August 28, 2009
Methods of Rationing Healthcare
Confessions of a Health Care Rationer
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Currently, within the private sector of health care, we have a large number of private insurance companies vying for the business of their customers. They ration health care on the basis of evidence-based medical necessity. The Obama health plan, the details of which are still being worked out, will also ration health care. The alternative to that is an accelerated escalation of aggregate healthcare costs. But the single-payer system to which Obama
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/28 at 07:13 PM
Welfare-State Socialism • (3) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkThursday, August 27, 2009
Statistical Subterfuge
President of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank says the real unemployment rate is 16%, not the 9.4% rate put out by the Fed as Obama propaganda.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/27 at 12:25 AM
Economics • (2) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkSaturday, August 22, 2009
Obamacare: A Picture From Inside the Beast
What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/22 at 06:00 PM
Welfare-State Socialism • (3) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkFriday, August 21, 2009
Government Stimulus Spending: Differing Perspectives
President Franklin Roosevelt, speaking of the intractable Depression, sourly admitted that Keynesian fiscal policy, in theory, was the simplest thing in the world, but in practice, a disaster.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/21 at 10:59 PM
Economics • (9) Comments
Print this Article • Email A Friend • PermalinkKrauthammer on “Death Panels”
It’s not a bad as you fear, but it does push sick people toward death.
Posted by Thomas E. Brewton on 08/21 at 04:19 PM
Welfare-State Socialism • (10) Comments
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