Political Blogging by Jim Henley
Because hey! it’s an old tradition here! As are . . . occasional link dumps!
- Anatol Lieven talks about the horror that a John McCain presidency would likely make of American foreign and "defense" policy. " . . . a few years from now Europe and the world could be looking back at the Bush administration with nostalgia." Yep.
- Leon Hadar reprints Martin Wolf on the death of laissez-faire in the financial - and other - markets. Bear-Stearns means the government will socialize your risk if you are rich and powerful enough, and "you" will take the money and run. If government’s going to hedge the downside risks of financiers, it’s prerogative is to regulate and tax the upside too. Couple thoughts:
- It would be naive to consider this an unalloyed good. There’s been an awful lot of flimflammery in the financial markets, but some of the investment-vehicle innovations surely still count as boons. More regulation does risk stifling changes that might be beneficial, for all that the financial sector has brought the new era on themselves.
- When I wrote the last "liberaltarianism" piece about the need to remove the "crutch" of corporate welfare before the crutch of poor support, some commenters argued that poor support should actually be considered a "shackle" because it fostered a "culture of dependency." I don’t think there’s nothing to the "culture of dependency" argument, but what about the c.o.d. that corporate welfare and bailouts fosters? Isn’t it a great kindness to lift that burden from our hapless rich?
Comment by Thoreau —
March 30, 2008 @ 11:50 pm
Regarding welfare for the poor: I wouldn’t say it’s entirely a shackle, but there can be an element of shackle in it.
Regarding welfare for the rich: I won’t call it a “shackle” for the recipients, but it might be considered a way of tilting the playing field against those who were more careful in their business dealings. So it’s not a shackle, but it definitely disadvantages the more responsible.
Comment by Andrew —
March 31, 2008 @ 1:42 am
the horror that a John McCain presidency would likely make of American foreign and “defense” policy. “
A McCain presidency is all but inevitable if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. This sad truth has nothing to do with issues or policy, but because McCain’s last name ends in an ‘n’.
‘What the fuck?!?’, you may ask, and with good reason. But as a careful student of history, I have noticed a trend:
Over 37% of our Presidents since Washington have had a last name ending in an ‘n’. Over a third! The only two candidates to beat an opponent with an ‘n’ name in the last century were Kennedy and Eisenhower. This was, of course, fallout from Truman, who left office as one of the most unpopular chief executives in history. The country became disenchanted with their ‘n’ presidents for nearly a decade.
After two terms of Shrub, we are destined for another ‘n’ to take the helm of this great nation. Personally, I hope it’s that St.Bernard, Beethoven, from those cute movies a few years ago. He was sure clever. A sight more clever than McCain, that’s for sure. Yup…Beethoven for President.
Comment by Jeff Darcy —
March 31, 2008 @ 7:24 am
I’ve gotten pretty used to laissez-fairies shouting “moral hazard” whenever the subject is health care or (as you point out) welfare. Where’s that cry when the subject is Bear Stearns? They’ve sure gotten awfully quiet, haven’t they? Apparently, to paraphrase Leona Helmsley, moral accountability is for little people.
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 7:32 am
Where’s that cry when the subject is Bear Stearns? They’ve sure gotten awfully quiet, haven’t they?
No.
Comment by quasibill —
March 31, 2008 @ 8:45 am
I’m sure that this will come as a surprise, but I don’t think you’ll be able to identify one that isn’t a) directly influenced by a government subsidy, and/or b) originated from a government sponsored program (ex. the market for MBSs couldn’t get off the ground until Ginny Mae started guaranteeing them - eventually, non-guaranteed MBSs could be sold on the infrastructure developed for Ginny Mae).
“Financial innovations”, in other words, is most often a euphemism for state directed economic engineering. Most people who don’t have access to a printing press can’t make money investing in debt. It takes someone like Buffet - who dedicates countless man-hours to researching each company he invests in - to make money like that absent government privileges or state inteference in the market.
Comment by Jeff Darcy —
March 31, 2008 @ 9:03 am
Is that so, von Laue? Can you show where the prophets of laissez-faire are applying their own moral-hazard arguments to this situation as aggressively as they have applied those arguments elsewhere? They’re still way too loud in general, I’ll grant you, but not on this subject.
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 9:49 am
What is the game you want to play, Jeffie?
You go find a quote, or demonstrate lack of, from someone who is “less aggressive”, measured…how?
And I find someone who is aggressively applying the moral hazard argument to the bailout?
Then we compare the loudness of the two internet denizens? (Whatever “loud” means!)
I can hold up my end of the bargain, easy. But, what do you care? You aren’t very interested in the causes of the problem, or the merits of various solutions. (Or discussing them like adults, at any rate.) You want to hate on “lassez-fairies”. Well, have a ball.
Comment by Jeff Darcy —
March 31, 2008 @ 10:15 am
I’ve discussed the causes of the problem and the merits of solutions plenty, von Laue - here, on my own website, on forums, etc. You’d know that if you weren’t so given to making claims about others before clicking a link or two to check whether those claims are true. I have good reasons for “hating on laissez-fairies” (get the spelling right), which are largely the same as Wolf’s and don’t need to be repeated in this context. Do you have good reasons for defending them? What are those reasons? You seem to think my condemnation is unfair, which implies that you think what I’m condemning is defensible. How do you justify “laissez-faire” for decisions and “let us help” for consequences in the Bear Stearns case while that same decision-making freedom and that same help are denied others? How do you interpret this as anything other than an admission of laissez-faire’s limits, as Wolf says? Did you even read what Wolf said, or is that another click you couldn’t bother with?
Comment by Leonard —
March 31, 2008 @ 10:44 am
There’s plenty of reasons to hate corp welfare, but this is not one of them.
The whole c.o.d. arguments depends on a value judgement: that a life spent on welfare, producing nothing, is inferior in some sense (moral and spiritual) to a normal life, spent producing value and thereby adding to the commonweal. People need to create, in a sense, and welfare deprives them of that. I’ll buy that argument, at least for me. But the thing here is, that’s a human life we’re talking about: the claim is that it is deeply unsatisfying for human beings to just exist, watching TV and eating. Note that the analogy to rich people breaks here: the analog to the individual welfare recipient is a corporation, not the corp’s owners. And while in a sense the c.o.d does make corps similarly indolent — usually they can no longer compete with other corps, for example — that’s not of any moral concern to us. Corps don’t have feelings. Corps are strictly instruments; means only, not ends. What’s really important to liberals is individual human lives: we want them to be as rich and fulfilling as possible.
The rich owners, meanwhile, are not spending lives of idleness, rather they are playing the game of rent-seeking. And it’s perfectly satisfying, I think, from an individual pov. (I’ve brushed the outer edges of that world.) It’s fun gaming the suckers.
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 10:46 am
I don’t read your website, and I misspelled a word. Game, set and match to you, sir!
How do you justify “laissez-faire” for decisions and “let us help” for consequences in the Bear Stearns case while that same decision-making freedom and that same help are denied others?
I don’t and won’t. You’re accusing free marketers of hypocracy on this issue, because they all support bailouts of Wall Street. Lots of people are extremely consistent on these issues, but I guess they aren’t “loud” enough. Way to take it to the straw, guy.
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Er, “they all support bailouts of Wall Street” in your head
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
Well, Mr. Darcy, here in this thread Jim has come out against the bailout, I have, and von Laue has as well.
There’s 3 folks on a libertarian website for ya. Good enough?
Maybe you want this to be like the “There are no moderate Muslims” game. Some blathering idiot first shouts “There are no moderate Muslims denouncing violence.” Then somebody googles up a quote from a prominent Imam or organization denouncing violence. Then the blathering idiot says either “Why don’t they denounce it louder?” or “Why aren’t there more?” (an invitation to google up another quote) or (for the really crazy ones) “They aren’t real Muslims if they denounce violence.”
Same game, different topic.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
EDIT: My first comment didn’t explicitly mention the most recent bailout, but I did criticize corporate welfare.
OK, now find me another moderate Imam!
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
Oh, JD:
How do you interpret this as anything other than an admission of laissez-faire’s limits, as Wolf says? Did you even read what Wolf said, or is that another click you couldn’t bother with?
I did read it; Jim interpreted the speech correctly, and you did not. Still haven’t bothered to read your website, though. Maybe later, champ!
Comment by mds —
March 31, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
Obviously not. Those who hold a significant public platform and who gained much of their power by bashing “welfare queens” are the ones who are conspicuously silent, or even cheering on the latest round of massive corporate bailouts at taxpayer expense. The Republican candidate for president is perfectly happy to vomit up the latest “personal responsibility” mantra when it’s those shiftless poor, or low-information individual consumers, yet he’s all for making JP Morgan Chase a huge gift. Because it’s earmarks that are the real problem. I’m afraid that most “lassez faire” people that Mr. Darcy encounters are not true Scotsmen. But that will continue unless and until those in the spotlight calling themselves Scottish are brought low for being stinking hypocrites and thieves. No, I have no idea how to hasten that day, unless we all move to Alternate Earth of Jim Henley the Hailed Iraq War Pundit (AEJHHIW). Gesundheit.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Jeff Darcy, those of us here dislike some of the same people that you dislike. Why are you giving us crap about it?
Comment by Jeff Darcy —
March 31, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
I see loyalty to a colleague trumps principle. You linked to Wolf, seemingly with some degree of agreement or approval. You brought up the “culture of dependency” issue. I was, for the most part, echoing your “what about the c.o.d. that corporate welfare and bailouts fosters” question, which I assume you asked because there had not yet been a satisfactory answer. Nonetheless, the same sentiment from me is attack-worthy. I stand accused of acts I did not commit, tactics I did not use, ironically the fabricators of those crimes accusing me of employing a strawman. Why? Because I - an outsider - directed it toward a group with whom you find yourself identified, even though you yourself have expressed dissent and disappointment on the same point?
What crap. It’s your blog, I’ll leave, but I just lost most of my previously-considerable respect for you. This kind of thing is why so many who might be swayed by reasoned libertarian arguments instead turn the other way.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Drink!
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 1:43 pm
Lighten up, Francis. Let’s start again, and maybe all this rancor will fall away.
How about we start with you explaining who and what are “Laissez-fairies”.
Comment by mds —
March 31, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Flamboyantly gay collies?
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Also, don’t pin anything I say on Jim or T. I have no official affiliation with UO or UO subsidiaries.
Comment by von Laue —
March 31, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
*groan*
Comment by Frank —
March 31, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Thoreau said “Jeff Darcy, those of us here dislike some of the same people that you dislike. Why are you giving us crap about it?”
I just have to savor how incredibly delightfully funny and bizarre that is coming from you.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Frank-
I complain specifically about the Congressional Democrats and anybody who rushes to their defense. Jeff Darcy complains about just about any proponent of free market capitalism.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 31, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
Well, there’s the already-mentioned issue of moral hazard (see the 90s “Asian tiger” economies falling over for extreme examples) and plain rent-seeking, but that’s obviously a different - though also nasty - animal. Maybe the prototypical paid-to-grow-nothing farms might resemble the situation of someone on welfare, but I’m not so sure. Further, the libertarian stance is to not care about harms done by a subsidy to its recipients or the shock of going off it. Cut the subsidies off, and if some companies go under, let them.
Not necessarily. The C-o-D argument, as I’ve heard, really has to do with the assumption of a desire to make a living. The argument, which I subscribe to, is that the welfare system serves to penalize a recipient’s efforts to become a self-supporting person. When concrete efforts to become self-sufficient earn penalties, it isn’t “evil” on the part of, say, a single mother to be leery of taking a part-time job if it’s going to cut off her welfare payments and not even pay as much. Even if that job would lead to a better one in time, she doesn’t know how long that would take, and she has kids to think about. All such policies act in synergy with things like the war on drugs and the efforts to destroy minority neighborhoods and replace them with housing projects.
It’s not the money, it’s the system - and I think it’s inevitable with any welfare system. I’d trade the entire welfare system for a no-strings-attached negative income tax - just give anyone below a minimum income matching money to get up to that level, essentially. I’d rather fund the openly lazy schlubs along with the people who need help than fund a system that kicks the feet out from under people.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 31, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
…And the first statist who cackles and pounces on how my last post proves I’m not a “real” libertarian is welcome to first kiss my ass, then exhume and kiss Milton Friedman’s ass. This process is to be repeated the next time that person rolls his/her eyes at a libertarian being “uncompromising” in objecting to the government project de jour he/she supports.
(The first libertarian who complains gets a shrug and an invitation to come up with something better.)
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 31, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
More to the point, Thoreau, you don’t loudly support the administration on the basis of the Reds being pro-capitalism and then attack anyone who criticizes the anti-free market policies. Nor do you say the only remedy for such policies is to give them more votes and more power.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 31, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
<statist>
Don’t you get it, Eric? There are no moderate libertarians! It says so right here in my
LGF-approved translation of the Korancopy of Atlas Shrugged! You have a duty towage jihad on mekick me to the gutter to starve!</statist>
Comment by Bruce Baugh —
March 31, 2008 @ 8:05 pm
REAL free marketeers close their own HTML tags and don’t rely on handouts!
:)
Comment by mds —
April 1, 2008 @ 9:52 am
Irony: You’re Doing It Wrong