Unqualified Offerings

Dept. of Former Tweets

21 Responses to “Dept. of Former Tweets”

1. Comment by Sasha —
   March 22, 2010 @ 9:13 am

   That was my exact thought last night. I wondered, with his vote for the jobs bill and his failure to do the main thing he was elected to do, stop health care reform, if Scott Brown’s prospects haven’t taken a fatal blow.

   Be interesting to see how this plays out.

2. Comment by Slim Charles —
   March 22, 2010 @ 10:15 am

   Can we also declare by consensus that President O’s nomination/election was the worst stroke of luck the US has had since Theresa Lepore and the butterfly ballot gave us the bumbling scion from Midland to be our effing emperor?

3. Comment by William Burns —
   March 22, 2010 @ 12:29 pm

   Slim,

   You really think we’d be better off under McCain?

4. Comment by Russell L. Carter —
   March 22, 2010 @ 1:07 pm

   “You really think we’d be better off under McCain?”

   And Palin! It woulda been a Caligulesqe burlesque, for sure. Think about how much material IOZ would have had.

5. Comment by Slim Charles —
   March 22, 2010 @ 6:29 pm

   @ William Burns,

   No, but I think Hillary would have been preferable by a wide margin. And if the major media didn’t have such a throbbing erection for a U.S. Senator who had no experience as an administrator or in the private sector, our nation wouldn’t be heading towards “mere shit-stain” status quite as fast.

   (I still think there’s a chance McCain would have been worse, e.g., if he got us into another war. Worst possible outcome? President Palin.)

6. Comment by William Burns —
   March 22, 2010 @ 6:31 pm

   Just out of curiosity, what was Hilary’s experience in the private sector or as an administrator?

7. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
   March 23, 2010 @ 6:56 am

   Though I’m not a fan or anything, I’m not quite sure what Scott Brown could have done to stop ObamaCare. He is in the Senate. The House gambled that the Senate would not screw them on this. Now Brown was apparently a very smart entrepreneur during the election by making his election seem more important than it really was (this is a common the amongst all successful candidates); but a few years from now that won’t really matter in any re-election campaign he runs.

   Anyway, going forward I agree with Michael Cannon that we should concentrate on repealing three things:

   (1) The individual mandate.

   (2) The price controls.

   (3) The various subsidies.

   http://www.cato.org/dailypodcast/podcast-archive.php?podcast_id=1118

8. Comment by Jim Henley —
   March 23, 2010 @ 7:09 am

   Hi Jordan: 1) The post was really a joke about the exaggerated significance people attributed to Scott Brown at the time of his election. Now, in truth, one of the exaggerators was Scott Brown. 2) Even when I was a libertarian I considered Michael Cannon a hack. In fact, he was one of my main inspirations when I dialed my Cato-at-Liberty rss feed down from everything to just the foreign-policy and civil-liberties posts.

9. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
   March 23, 2010 @ 8:23 am

   Jim Henley,

   Well, whether Cannon is a hack or not, I’m not quite sure how on defends with a straight face things like price controls. So it is immaterial whether he is a hack or not.

   So, are you in favor of any or all these things?

10. Comment by stras —
    March 23, 2010 @ 8:56 am

    A Clinton II administration would be nearly indistinguishable from what we’ve got now, with some slight rhetorical differences – namely, Clinton doing more of her foreigner-bashing from the Oval Office instead of from Foggy Bottom. It’s a bit mystifying that anyone managed to get so worked up over what was essentially slightly different flavors of Corporate Democratic Hawk.

11. Comment by stras —
    March 23, 2010 @ 8:57 am

    Price controls are awesome. There aren’t many meaningful ones in that bill, though.

12. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
    March 23, 2010 @ 9:06 am

    stras,

    Are they? The USSR had a lots and lots of price controls; and long lines partially as a result of such. The U.S. imposed price controls on gasoline in the 1970s; this lead to long lines at the pump (the embargo which inspired such a boneheaded maneuver always had far too much leakage to be a credible weapon – in other words, oil is fungible and people cheated). Price controls lead to product, etc. shortages.

13. Comment by stras —
    March 23, 2010 @ 9:28 am

    Private health insurance isn’t gasoline. One of these is an actual, physical material; the other is overpriced bullshit.

14. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
    March 23, 2010 @ 9:41 am

    stras,

    One of the primary insights of the economic way of thinking is that what one is willing to pay for something is entirely subjective. Add to that concept the one of marginalism and this is why professional baseball players are paid far more than teachers. Or, water vs. diamonds.

15. Comment by Jim Henley —
    March 23, 2010 @ 11:51 am

    Jordan: Have you heard of the fallacy of the excluded middle?

16. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
    March 23, 2010 @ 12:26 pm

    Jim,

    In reference to what exactly?

17. Comment by Jim Henley —
    March 23, 2010 @ 1:12 pm

    The broad range of possible political economies between the Soviet Union and libertopia.

18. Comment by Jordan Cartilla —
    March 23, 2010 @ 1:28 pm

    Jim,

    Price controls have zero to do with libertopia. They are just dumb. Dumb like the effort by some governments to regulate religious belief. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. If one of my examples is dramatic, that is for effect. Got any more strawmen?

19. Comment by thomas —
    March 23, 2010 @ 10:50 pm

    The worst thing about the last 2 months has been the decline in value of my scottbrownnation.com domain name.

20. Comment by Thoreau —
    March 24, 2010 @ 1:24 am

    Don’t tell IOZ about this, Jim. He declared Scott Brown Day a continuing national celebration.

21. Comment by Barry —
    March 24, 2010 @ 10:00 am

    Slim: ” And if the major media didn’t have such a throbbing erection for a U.S. Senator who had no experience as an administrator or in the private sector,…”

    THE REST OF THIS POST HAS BEEN DELETED DUE TO THE ‘JEEZE LOUISE, WE JUST BARELY SURVIVED THE FRAKKIN’ ‘MBA ADMINISTRATION’ ACT OF 2009.

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