Even a Blind Nut Rightly Clocks a Stopped Squirrel Twice a Day
by Mike Kimel
Hi folks. I have to go on a bit of a hiatus. I have some work-related things that need taking care of that will require a lot of time for the foreseeable future. But I thought I’d leave you with a link to a post by Megan McArdle that I actually agree with 100% and recommend reading. I know!!!
Well, off to the salt mines. Toodle-oo.
Authorship clarified.
I’m still laughing at her continually attempts to resurrect Herbert Hoover’s reputation. The other two Ivy League English Lit majors with no training in history or economics worth mentioning* at least can rationalize that they may not have realized that the All in the Family theme song was satire. But McMegan is much younger, and shouldn’t have that excuse.**
*Amity Shlaes, Brown, 1982, and Barack Obama, Columbia, 1983.
**How I Met Your Mother viewers may recognize this as a version of The Ewoks Rule.
Ken Houghton,
Well, there is a Hoover Institution, and it is extremely well funded. And nobody, even if they’re getting paid for it, wants to be associated with failure on the order of the Great Depression. But they aren’t going to give up the paycheck. Conclusion – it is necessary to kill the association with failure.
So someone else has to be responsible for the Great Depression, and the folks at the Hoover Institution will lead the charge to see to it that someone else is to blame. Now, since the Great Depression began in the first year of Hoover’s term… which makes the obvious culprit his predecessor. But that was Calvin Coolidge, and blaming Silent Cal would never do because he’s one of the good guys who cut taxes and went all laissez faire. You aren’t going to blame monster tax cuts and deregulation for the Great Depression, are you?
The solution: FDR!!!!
Now, McMegan is more nuanced than the real Hoover folks (see Amity Shales that you mention) but that’s a function of not being on that payroll.
A follow up… and I write this as someone who has excoriated Obama over and over for his stupid policies.
We’re already seeing people blaming Obama for the Great Recession… that began in 2007!!
Benjamin Strong and Allen Greenspan spiked the punch bowl and offered everyone one for the road. These guys and their real bosses are the villians, not the drunk toadies behind the wheel.
I believe Ms McArdle is mistaken in believing that most congressmen are good, but her wish for blind trusts and greater transperancy are spot on.
Good luck in the salt mine.
Why is McCardle concerned about Congressional “insider trading”? What cases have there been of such activities in the recent past? She has written twice in quick succession, once about the issue and then about having written about the issue and reiterated that second time that there is little being done and little that might be done. And within all of that she meanders from the issue being a serious moral problem to possibly being only an artifact of efforts to review the amorphous data that attempts to account for the financial investment activities of members of Congress. She seems to start by erecting her own straw house and then knocking it down and then writing a second time about the vedry same burning house.
It seems like little more than a waste of paper stock and band width. Is she being clever by reporting a bogus issue, calling it a bogus issue and doing it twice in order to not talk about the reality of the crime of money in politics. That which has nothing to do with investments in the stock market and every thing to do with the grossly inflated political contributions system.
Jack,
I am not sure its a bogus issue. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. I generally like to make sure I have the data before I say anything, but in this case, the point is, there is no data… and that’s by design. But there is plenty of evidence of behavior that looks a heck of a lot like corruption on all sides.
Surprise, surprise. The political class feathers its own nest. Is this breaking news or a review of political history? If we elect people to represent someone’s interests in the Congress other than our own, and those who we elect are recipients of huge quantities of campaign finance funds and all manner of eventual payoff what is the surprise that they would find every other opportunity to gather yet more money. How many are from the industries that they bag for? How many go back to represent those industries as lobbiests once they’re out of office? How many wives and husbands of our elected representatives have positions that coincidentally relate to some aspect of government work, funding or regulation? It is truly incestuous at all levels. Until the voters recognize the need to choose representatives based on their actual economic self interests we will continue to feed this insatiable group as they neglect the very people who make their access to largesse a reality.
Jack,
I’d have to find it, but I think I had a post on Harry Reid before he became leader of the Dems in the Senate. As I recall, he has three sons, a daughter, and a wife, of whom two of the sons, his son in law, and his wife all were in some way involved in efforts to lobby the Federal government. In a serious country they’d all be in jail. My guess is similar patterns apply to just about the whole lot of the folks in the Congress.