Unqualified Offerings

Late Night Thoughts While Watching Bill Maher

13 Responses to “Late Night Thoughts While Watching Bill Maher”

1. Comment by Kevin Carson —
   October 11, 2008 @ 12:45 am

   Just by half? That’s way too conservative. The military budget’s been so inflated in the past few years that cutting it in half would just be a return to the status quo ante.

   I’d like to cut it to 1% of GDP or less, which would be more than enough to provide for defense against an actual invasion of U.S. territory.

2. Comment by Rojo —
   October 11, 2008 @ 1:06 am

   Half? Just half? Bah.

   Speaking of the Pentagon budget though, Counterpunch.org has been publishing stuff by a defense analyst named Winslow Wheeler pointing out that as the spending has been going up the number of personnel has been going down, the training has been going down, the amount of armaments and equipment has actually been shrinking, and also getting older and older to boot. The Pentagon is a black hole sucking in more and more money and producing less and less military value. Not that I think we need the amount of “military value” we do have, but I wouldn’t mind having some of that dough back.

3. Comment by Thoreau —
   October 11, 2008 @ 1:34 am

   I want a military that’s 50% larger than the next largest military.

   Given that we currently spend more on the military than all the other countries on the globe combined, that seemingly hawkish statement would actually be a very, very deep cut.

4. Comment by Glenn Reynolds —
   October 11, 2008 @ 9:42 am

   I would like to see us focus our spending on sex robots. I like em some sex robots.

   I would also triple defense spending in a revenue neutral way by way of earmoark reform.

5. Comment by Eric Dondero (no, not really) —
   October 11, 2008 @ 12:20 pm

   I want to bone Sarah Pailn.

6. Comment by Sarah Palin —
   October 11, 2008 @ 2:21 pm

   I’m gonna ignore that comment and instead talk about being a beauty queen. There’s a special place in heaven for us beauty queens, showing our talents and beauty and filling Dondero with thoughts of drilling rights.

7. Comment by Waingro —
   October 11, 2008 @ 2:34 pm

   “Stephen Moore is the biggest fucking tool in the country.”

   Sweet Jesus, that guy is a jackass. I didn’t see the show, but I’m guessing he blamed the financial crisis on some combination of:

   1)Too much regulation
   2) High taxes
   3) The Community Reinvestment Act and those devious, devious bastards at Fannie and Freddie.

   1& 2 are his all-purpose answers for… well, everything. When your commentary is something that can be produced by a spambot, you’ve jumped the shark.

8. Comment by Charles Hueter —
   October 11, 2008 @ 4:07 pm

   Waingro, I didn’t see the show either. However, what’s the problem with someone whose default economic policy positions are “reduce regulation” and “reduce taxes”?

   Neither are terrible guidelines, unless I’m wrong in assuming you are a libertarian.

   More importantly, if you’ve arrived at your principles and are willing to defend them that necessarily means you’ll be repeating yourself to some degree. Being a public advocate of a set of policy proposals means your words will be simplified down to talking points.

9. Comment by Waingro —
   October 11, 2008 @ 7:33 pm

   Waingro, I didn’t see the show either. However, what’s the problem with someone whose default economic policy positions are “reduce regulation” and “reduce taxes”?

   Neither are terrible guidelines, unless I’m wrong in assuming you are a libertarian.

   I’m not really a libertarian, but I’m sympathetic to some of its insights. I just think at this point in time, default de-regulators and tax-cutters have the onus on them to explain why they’re correct, rather than just assuming that they’re correct and hand-waving away reasonable concerns.

   I’m happy to consider costs/benefits and second & third order effects of certain policies. However, market fundamentalism has dominated elite discourse for nearly twenty-plus years and it’s proponents could benefit from some humility and introspection, IMO.

10. Comment by Eric Dondero —
    October 12, 2008 @ 10:42 am

    I have a lovely Chinese wife, who I “drill” on a regular basis, thank you. So, I’m set.

11. Comment by Thoreau —
    October 12, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

    DONDEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

12. Comment by Minion of URKOBOLD —
    October 12, 2008 @ 3:54 pm

    DUMBDEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

13. Comment by Charles Hueter —
    October 13, 2008 @ 7:52 pm

    However, market fundamentalism has dominated elite discourse for nearly twenty-plus years and it’s proponents could benefit from some humility and introspection, IMO.

    Surely, you jest. I may agree that simply observing what’s been said over the last generation would convince an observer that people do seem to defend “the free market” quite a bit. But market fundamentalism? No way.

    Such a advocacy platform would demand the end of all government in all corners of human life. I’m a libertarian anarchist and that’s one way of describing my social philosophy. It’s what I want to see happen! So it pisses me off to no end to see professional liars (the GOP and its shills) abuse perfectly sensible terminology to suit their partisan needs. The irritation grows deeper when those same crooks fail, as they always do, to follow through on the clear meaning of their words and institute some half-assed part-state, part-market scheme that has nothing to do with proper capitalist economics.

    I just think at this point in time, default de-regulators and tax-cutters have the onus on them to explain why they’re correct, rather than just assuming that they’re correct and hand-waving away reasonable concerns.

    I agree that most defaulters have bad arguments for their side, primarily because they’re advocating on explicitly utilitarian grounds. “Do X because it works better than Y.” Then, when X doesn’t live up to the hype, it’s simple to concoct a counter-argument just as thin as the defaulters’.

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