An unpleasant ride with no end yet in sight
David Warren is gloomy:
it gets crazier. In the middle of this economic mess, the U.S. politicians are debating not one, but two new programs of unprecedented size, without the slightest understanding of the economic consequences. One is a vast new “health care” plan, to be sold almost entirely on emotion, with President Obama’s snake-oil skills. The only thing clear about it, is the intention of the people behind it: to effectively nationalize the U.S. medical system, by making every part of it report to government bureaucracies. This is what we did in Canada in the 1960s, and we’ve spent the decades since trying to persuade ourselves that waiting rooms are natural.
The other is the “cap and trade” legislation. At a time when it has become all but obvious that the “global warming” scare was an imposture, the U.S. government is going to war against carbon fuels, through a program that can only kill jobs, both directly and through outsourcing of American economic activity to places with lower environmental standards; while igniting protectionist trade wars over the latter.
The scheme will cause gas and electricity prices to skyrocket — to the immediate benefit of the big private energy conglomerates (thus setting them up for further demonization, and the next round of nationalization). By triggering a massive inflation of energy prices, it will do most harm to those on fixed incomes – to the poor and the elderly most of all. Like all such gargantuan schemes, it will create a circus of fraud and corruption. And yet, at the end of the day, it will have no significant impact on the environment…
How can Americans fight this? I don’t think they can. For not only has the Democrat party — committed in the main to the “second American revolution” I began to sketch above — control of the White House and both Houses. The Republican party is pulling itself apart. Only half of it is willing to fight: the other half thinks the only way back to power is to accommodate this revolution.
You’d think it would be easy to end this age of foolishness — that it would be easy to say that the government shouldn’t be nationalizing everything in sight, that it should live within its means (or at least not add additional burdens to already crazy entitlements), that Obama’s numbers are from outer space, etc. You’d think that some 2012 wannabe would take advantage of Obama’s apparent disdain for “freedom” and “liberty” around the globe, whether in the US, Honduras, or Iran, and take advantage of that terrible and now-obvious weakness.
You’d think that some politician would be seeking to capitalize on the glaring deficiencies of Obama and his plans. Maybe some politician on the right is doing so, and it’s just not being reported. It would seem to be the opportunity of a lifetime, and it’s puzzling that no one has yet tried to fill the vacuum.
July 5th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
You’d think that some politician would be seeking to capitalize on the glaring deficiencies of Obama and his plans.
Funny you should say that just now:
READER PAUL LEE thinks that Sarah Palin will try to start a new Tea Party in August… My thoughts: (1) How’d that Ross Perot thing work out? (2) It would be hard — not impossible, but hard — to get enough candidates on the ballot to make a difference, given that state ballot laws are quite deliberately designed to prevent third parties from getting a toehold.
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/81381/
If that’s what Palin has in mind, the safe bet is that it automatically grants Obama a second term by siphoning off Republican voters. However, if the economy does particularly poorly over the next two years, there’s a reasonable chance she’ll succeed.
There’s two more points that I think give her a better chance than it may first appear. 1) I have to say that the Tea Parties are showing much more staying power than Ross Perot’s “movement” ever did. 2) Things are different from 1992. When Perot ran, nobody could really say exactly what was wrong with Washington other than vague accusations of “special interests”. A lot of people knew there was something wrong, but could not articulate it precisely. 17 years later, it’s easy to pinpoint the mechanism by which the political class feeds on the country’s difficulties to increase its power and wealth at our expense. (“Never let a crisis go to waste.”) I suspect there’s some precise actions available that a new party could coalesce around (a “Federalism Amendment”, for example). And the middle class has grown much more concerned that they being set up to be impoverished in the name of “progressive” goals. That fear could be a great motivator.
July 6th, 2009 at 4:46 am
C&T will actually harm the environment, and in more than one way.
First it will outsource production of every kind to places with less strict environmental standards, where of course facilities will be built which even without c&t would not meet US requirements.
Second it will destroy the economic power required to fund research and development efforts into future production and energy generation technology that would cause less pollution of any kind than current systems.
Third, the transportation of the goods produced in those “dirty” factories that replaced cleaner US factories will be done using ships that are flagged in countries that also have far more lax standards for safety and pollution and are thus free to dump waste into the ocean where US flagged ships are not.
Last but not least, people who are poor have no money to be “clean”. If they can’t afford to buy heating oil or natural gas they’ll burn wood to stay warm, and they won’t be stopped by “environmental regulations” when it comes to chopping down trees in forests and city streets when there’s ice forming on the insides of their windows. If they can’t afford electricity, they’ll burn candles and wood for light.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Monday morning links…
Please take a minute to catch up on our posts from the past few days. Some of us have been working while we have been playing.
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