What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[4est_4est_Gump]

You have yet to make your case for being respectful, but I will answer you as if you had been. You said I could not call myself what I call myself, and I don't understand how that conforms with libertarian principles.

Libertarianism and mutualism are not opposed. To me they combine. I am not claiming to be in any way unique, indeed I tried to point you at sources that suggest my left-libertarian views are, while not in any sense in the majority, at least not uncommon.

You seem oddly reluctant to debate history. I respct the history of those you admire, as you will have seen from my earlier remarks about Mises and Hayek. Do you respect - even if you disagree with - the history of those I admire?

Libertarianism over time has been claimed by left and right, though rarely by the centre. You write as if it's always been a possession of the 'right', which does seem to me odd: that's really quite a modern development. It may be that the USA and the rest of the world see this differently. In Russia at the end of the 19th century, for instance - how would it have looked then?

As a fundamental principle: I am a libertarian. I feel that is not against 'groups' but about 'groups' - how do we form them? Who runs them? To whom are they responsible?

We will only survive by living in groups and finding ways of being run by groups. Tha['s not at all the same as 'group-think', for instance, where I'm with Mises. We must beware of group-think, but work out how to work together in groups.

Will you now respond with some thoughts of your own about what you believe?

Patrick

It's not right-wing either.

There's only one group that matters, the individual. We do not form groups, we express ideas that attract individuals to them and cause them, through reason to act according to the Natural Law of Capitalism whereas mutualism is a Statist, therefore Socialist, way of thinking and knowing Mises as you do, then you know that any intervention, no matter how noble in theory, leads to eventual need to address the unseen consequences of the intervention which even Alinsky talked about.

Therefore, if you want to say you are a Libertarian, I will respect your right to call yourself a Libertarian, but I will also firmly say that you are wrong, confused, or simply lying (maybe just to yourself, as I said, I've been down that road) about who you are economically.

If the base premise you hold that the state has a role to play in determining economic outcomes, then you are simply, and clearly, on The Road to Serfdom.

The Federal government exists to provide external security and diplomacy as well as a Judiciary and law against injury, not much else.

Now, if your community wants to turn itself into a Soviet or an Anarchy, more power to you, local government "knows" best and people are free to vote with their feet.

So feel free to call yourself a Mutualist Libertarian and congratulate yourself on your ability to find others lost in this logic trap as a clear validation of your belief system, but what you are doing on a well-researched and well-articulated level is nothing more that the shallow "I'm a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal" mantra that we so often hear the mouth-breathers midlessly chanting.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Dont look now Cap'n, but the OP is STILL TRUE, over two years later. That's an exceedingly long time to be stuck on the "hope for failure spin-o-matic".

Still no Crippling Inflation, Gasoline is still cheaper now than it was at it's high in '08, The Chinese are still very much interested in loaning us money despite the GOP holding the economy hostage and getting our credit rating downgraded earlier this year.

How many years are you going to wait in hopeful anticipation of the sky fallin Cap'n ChickenLittle? Is there a statute of limitations on the dire predictions that you and yours were making over two years ago or do you plan to just keep waiting and then claim victory when/if something happens in 5, 10, 15 years?

We're still in the pattern of depression and all the poverty and misery indexes, like unemployment are worse than when you began this thread, but hey, you still have a job and your 401K, so what do you care about the victims of Obamanomics?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Socialists, Progressives, and Mutualist Libertarians...

In seeking to understand the moral framework of progressivism, it is helpful to retrace the movement’s origins. The vital core of the turn-of-the-20th-century Progressive Movement was a group of social scientists, many of whom had studied in German universities in the post–Civil War era. Among their most energetic reformers were a group of economists who had studied with members of the German Historical School of economics, a school whose approach was, as historian Daniel M. Fox observes, “deeply influenced by Hegelian concepts of the historical process.” Richard T. Ely was arguably the most influential member of this group. Ely played a leading role in the founding of the reform-minded American Economic Association, as well as its spin-off, the American Association for Labor Legislation — an organization that became, in historian Daniel Rodgers’s estimate, “the most active and important social insurance lobby in the United States.” Few progressives, moreover, did as much as Ely to pioneer reform-fertilizing research in city planning, labor legislation, conservation, and agricultural economics, or trained as many students who went on to implement reforms in these areas during the Progressive Era and the New Deal.

The Historical school’s approach to economics, Ely emphasizes, cannot be understood apart from the primacy it gives to ethics: “To the demands of ethics, it is felt, should the entire economic life be made subservient.” The cornerstone of the progressives’ system of “social ethics” was the “ethical ideal.” The “ethical ideal which animates the new political economy,” Ely explains, “is the most perfect development of all human faculties in each individual, which can be attained,” including “all the higher faculties — faculties of love, of knowledge, of aesthetic perception, and the like.” Individuals actualize this ideal by developing their capacity to reason in its different aspects — e.g., its “mechanical” or industrial applications, the elaboration of the sciences, and ultimately metaphysical and moral insight — to appreciate beauty and, finally, to love, the development of which capacity would culminate in a voluntary embrace of the “law of service,” of the obligation, that is, to promote the fullest possible ethical development of every other human being. Importantly, then, the “ethical ideal” grounds not only the fundamental right of the individual to achieve his fullest possible development, but also the moral obligation to promote the fullest possible growth of everyone else. “Self-development for the sake of others,” Ely declares, “is the aim of social ethics.”

The progressives’ embrace of the “ethical ideal” profoundly redefined the content of individual freedom as Frederick Douglass and the Founders understood it. “‘When we speak of freedom as something to be highly prized,’” Ely writes, quoting the British neo-Hegelian T. H. Green, we “‘do not mean merely freedom from restraint or compulsion.’” “True liberty” does not consist in “negative” freedom — in, that is, the legal freedom to make decisions about one’s own life without suffering interference from others. Rather, “true liberty” is “positive” in character because it “means the expression of positive powers of the individual” to “‘make the most and best of [himself]’” — to develop, that is, all his faculties fully and to employ them in “service” to others.

This shift from a “negative” to a “positive” conception of freedom, which runs throughout the progressives’ writings, goes hand in hand with a particular understanding of history. Although the right and potential to become free in the “positive” sense inheres in human nature, Ely explains, the actualization of these latent faculties requires “a long and arduous constructive process.” This process is history or “social evolution” rightly understood. According to the progressives, history, for all its “ebb and flow,” is a process of “development” ordered toward the increasing actualization of a common nature or “destiny” — freedom in the “positive” sense. History thus entails a common path of development in which each subsequent stage represents a fuller flowering of humanity’s innate faculties. “‘When we measure the progress of a society by the growth in freedom,’” Ely notes, “‘we measure it by the increasing development and exercise on the whole of those powers of contributing to the social good with which we believe the members of the society to be endowed.’” The progressives believed in “progress,” in short, because they believed that history, as a process of moral growth, has an upward trajectory.

The progressive redefinition of freedom transformed the object of government. For the Founders, the purpose of government follows from the premise of human equality — from the idea, that is, that all men at all times and in all places are by nature equal. Because “all men are created equal,” as the Declaration of Independence has it, they are free by nature to rule themselves, or, what is the same thing, to exercise “certain unalienable rights,” among them “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Government, in turn, to be legitimate, must be “instituted” through “consent” for the purpose of “secur[ing] these rights.” For the progressives, by comparison, as human psychology evolves, so too does the purpose of government. In an advanced stage of development, a stage marked by a race’s growing consciousness of the “ethical ideal” — and hence the full scope of its moral obligation to others — “improvement” becomes the watchword of public policy. In the reformers’ view, America was awakening to this wider obligation.

Two very important consequences, in terms of the character of public policy, flow from this change.

First, it reverses the relationship between the individual and his government. For the Founders, the individual — not the government — has the primary right to decide how he ought to live. Individuals then “institute” government to aid them in living in this self-governing manner. In order to put its citizens in the enjoyment of their freedom, or natural rights, government must restrict their decision-making in some measure, with a view both to punishing those who would infringe upon the rights of others and to regulating the innocent exercise of freedom as necessary to ensure society’s preservation. But the Founders also well understood that the reach of the public — the reach of the law — must be limited if individuals are to have room to make decisions about their own lives. Private decision-making was thus to be the rule, and public restraints the exception.

For the progressives, in contrast, government’s obligation to promote the fullest possible growth of all trumps whatever right anyone might think he has to make decisions for himself — to exercise, that is, freedom in the Founders’ sense. Indeed, apart from the right to become free in the “positive” sense, the progressives repeatedly deny not only that individuals possess “so-called innate or ‘natural rights,’” as progressive political scientist W. W. Willoughby puts it, but also that the power of government is thus limited in principle. In considering the “attributes of the State,” Willoughby pointedly remarks, “that which first impresses one . . . is its possession of omnipotent rulership over all matters that arise between itself and the individuals of which it is composed.” To affirm the “omnipotent rulership” of the state is to affirm that government, not the individual, has the primary right to decide how the individual ought to act in every aspect of his or her life. It is to affirm, in other words, that all of the decisions previously reserved to individual control by virtue of the Founders’ natural-rights doctrine are now subject to public control in whatever measure government, as the agent of moral progress, deems necessary. “There is no limit to the right of the State,” Ely declares, “save its ability to do good.”

Second, when freedom is redefined in “positive” terms, it is divorced not only from the content of rights in the Founders’ sense, but also from the idea that men, as men, possess the same or equal rights — apart, again, from the fundamental right to become free in the “positive” sense. Although the progressives were confident that humanity was treading a common path of development, they also believed that different races and classes were advancing at profoundly different rates. In view of this situation, treating the different races equally would only frustrate the advance of the most primitive ones. “For a long time in this country,” Ely writes, “we were inclined to regard men as substantially equal, and to suppose that all could live under the same economic and political institutions. It now becomes plain that this is a theory which works disaster, and is, indeed, cruel to those who are in the lower stages, resulting in their exploitation and degradation.” Just how thoroughly government would need to subordinate any particular race (or class) would depend, in part, upon how primitive its stage of development was perceived to be. For the progressives, in short, treating the races unequally was not only not unjust, but was, in fact, a very hallmark of the government’s commitment to moral progress.

The progressive redefinition of freedom also inspired a humanitarian but frankly “colonial” foreign policy. Leading progressive politicians, including Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Beveridge, and Henry Cabot Lodge, promoted such a policy in the wake of the Spanish–American War. In a speech delivered in the Senate in 1900, for example, Beveridge — the keynote speaker at the Progressive-party convention of 1912 — argued that American withdrawal from the Philippines would amount to an abdication of “our part in the mission of our race, trustee under God, of the civilization of the world.” America was obliged to promote the development of the Filipinos, Beveridge argued, and its obligation to do so was in no way dependent upon their consent: “Self-government is a method of liberty — the highest, simplest, best — but it is acquired only after centuries of study and struggle and experiment and instruction and all the elements of the progress of man. Self-government is no base and common thing to be bestowed on the merely audacious. It is the degree which crowns the graduate of liberty, not the name of liberty’s infant class, who have not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom. Savage blood, Oriental blood, Malay blood, Spanish example — are these the elements of self-government?”

The progressives’ treatment of blacks domestically mirrors their treatment of the Filipinos. On the one hand, the progressives widely regarded the 15th Amendment — which barred the federal and state governments from denying the right to vote on account of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” — as an egregious error. Progressive economist John R. Commons, Ely’s student and colleague who personally trained many leading New Deal figures, complained that, following the Civil War, the “Negro” race, “after many thousand years of savagery and two centuries of slavery, was suddenly let loose into the liberty of citizenship and the electoral suffrage. The world never before had seen such a triumph of dogmatism and partisanship. It was dogmatism, because a theory of abstract equality and inalienable rights of man took the place of education and the slow evolution of moral character.” It is foolish, Commons insists, to confer rights upon men as men: “The suffrage must be earned, not merely conferred.” In his view the legal right to vote should not be extended to blacks until they acquired sufficient “intelligence, self-control, and capacity for cooperation,” which fitness could best be determined by “an honest educational test” — that is, a literacy test.

On the other hand, the progressives insisted that blacks be ruled with a view to preparing them for such participation. “The great lesson already learned,” Commons urges, “is that we must ‘begin over again’ the preparation of the negro for citizenship. This time the work will begin at the bottom by educating the negro for the ballot, instead of beginning at the top by giving him the ballot before he knows what it should do for him.” The progressives accordingly advocated a host of educational reforms, including segregation. In defending segregation, Edgar Gardner Murphy, a prominent southern progressive, always stressed the dual assumptions of the policy: “There is a distinct assumption of the negro’s inferiority,” he acknowledges. “But there is also a distinct assumption of the negro’s improvability. It is upon the basis of this double assumption that the South finds its obligation.” Blacks, when segregated, would not only be better protected from white violence, but would also be thrown back upon their own resources to provide for themselves. “The very process which may have seemed to some like a policy of oppression,” he declares, “has in fact resulted in a process of development.”

Some reformers advocated even more despotic forms of segregation. “The problem,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman explains in the American Journal of Sociology, “is this: Given: in the same country, Race A, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 10; and Race B, progressed in social evolution, say, to Status 4. . . . Given: that Race B, in its present condition, does not develop fast enough to suit Race A. Question: How can Race A best and most quickly promote the development of Race B?” Gilman’s solution was that all blacks beneath “a certain grade of citizenship” — those who were not “decent, self-supporting, [and] progressive” — “should be taken hold of by the state.” The government should compel them to live and work in labor camps until they proved they were able to make better decisions. The blacks living in these camps would be forced to labor productively for themselves, and their children would be educated in a progressive manner. Whereas Frederick Douglass had denounced such proposals as effective reenslavement of blacks, Gilman insists they “[are] not enslavement”: “It is no dishonor but an honorable employment from the first, and the rapid means of advancement. . . . All should belong to it — all, that is, below the grade of efficiency which needs no care. For the children — this is the vital base of the matter — a system of education, the best we have, should guarantee the fullest development possible to each; from the carefully appointed nursery and kindergarten up to the trade school fitting the boy or girl for life; or, if special capacity be shown, for higher education.”

For the progressives, government, as the agent of moral progress, is not only not obliged to secure to individuals the legal right to make decisions about their own lives, but is obliged to condition all such rights upon consideration of whether private decision-making conduces to their own and others’ fullest possible development. From this point of view, even severe restrictions upon certain people’s ability to govern their own affairs, and participate in the selection of their rulers, would not injure their freedom but advance it. Such restrictions would be, in effect, training wheels for freedom, instructional aids to be cast off when — and if — in the judgment of the advanced races, the “primitive” race had matured sufficiently.

Since the reformers’ approach to the governance of the more “primitive” races differs only in degree, not in kind, from their approach to the governance of Americans generally, it is instructive, for it casts in sharp relief how utterly paternalistic their conception of government is.

Tiffany Jones Miller is an associate professor of politics at the University of Dallas.This article originally appeared in the Nov. 14, 2011, issue of National Review.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We are in a fresh round of declinism — understandably, after borrowing nearly $5 trillion in less than three years and having very little to show for it. Pundit strives with op-ed writer to find the latest angle on America’s descent: We are broke; we are poorly educated; we are uncompetitive; we have gone soft; our political institutions are broken; and on and on. The Obama administration does its part, with sloganeering like “reset,” “lead from behind,” “post-American world,” and America as exceptional only to the degree that all nations feel exceptional.

This is not new. In the late 1930s, the New Germany and its autobahns were supposed to show Depression-plagued America how national will could unite a people to do great things. After all, they had Triumph of the Will Nuremberg rallies; we still had Hoovervilles. They flew sleek Me-109s; we flew lumbering cloth-covered Brewster Buffaloes. We, the victors of a world war, were determined never to repeat it; they, the losers, were eager to try it again.

In the 1950s, Sputnik and the vast spread of Communism through the postcolonial world were supposed proof of the efficiency and social justice of Communism and the rot of capitalism — the inevitable denouement of the 20th century. Sputnik soared, even as our ex-Nazi scientists could not seem to make our rockets work. They had Uncle Ho and Che; we had Diem and the Shah. Their guys wore peasant garb and long hair; ours, sunglasses and gold braid.

By the 1970s and 1980s, Japan Inc. was the next new paradigm of the post-American world. Even American “experts” lectured us on the need to adopt Japanese-like partnerships between corporations and government. They made Accords and Camrys; we made Pintos and Gremlins. We played golf at Pebble Beach; they owned it.

As Japan faded, the next great hope followed in the 1990s when the EU captivated the American Left. The Europeans’ loud moral declarations, their pacifism, cradle-to-grave entitlements, trains à grande vitesse — all of that was what a backward America should strive for. They crafted the Kyoto Agreement; we drove gas-guzzling Tahoes and Yukons. Their strong Euros bought in New York what our weak dollars could not in Paris.

Where are all those supposedly post-American systems now? Fascism was crushed; Communism imploded; Japan is aging and shrinking; the European Union is cracking apart. But, of course, there is China, which, we are told, is the next new replacement for America — a country with enormous demographic problems, a reputation for crude diplomacy and an outlaw approach to international commercial agreements, censored media and a complete lack of transparency, vast inequality, environmental catastrophes, and no stable political system to transition a rural peasantry into a postindustrial affluent citizenry. No matter — our jet-setting elites still whine that they have shiny new airports; we have grungy LAX and JFK. They have sleek bullet trains; we, creaking Amtrak.

In this era of American debt, rancor, pessimism, and declinism, we should reflect on what the United States still does far better than anyone else — and why that is.

Recently, the British magazine Times Higher Education rated the world’s top 400 universities. Seven of the top ten — Cal Tech, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Chicago, Berkeley — are American....

American petroleum engineers over the last decade have discovered radical new methods of recovering previously unknown or unreachable reserves of oil and gas. Contrary to all conventional wisdom, America’s natural-gas and petroleum reserves just keep growing. Suddenly, we have enough known natural gas to supply 100 percent of our domestic needs for the next 90 years — a huge window of opportunity in which to transition to competitive renewable energy....

We are worried that China may soon deploy one aircraft carrier. Yet the United States now has eleven enormous carrier groups, each one more powerful than all the other aircraft carriers in the world combined. In areas as diverse as drone and space technology, counterinsurgency, battlefield experience, air power, armor, and ship design, the American military is the best-armed, best-trained, and most lethal armed force around — and will be so for decades hence. The American soldier remains the most innovative, disciplined, and adaptive in the world — and surely after Iraq and Afghanistan the most veteran.

We forget sometimes that there are a host of small, vulnerable nations that apparently still assume that the United States, alone, can and will come to their aid.... The truth is that in the decades ahead, weak and vulnerable states will look to the U.S. military as never before.

A billion adolescents worldwide are growing up with Apple iPhones, iPods, and iPads; with Facebook accounts, Amazon online ordering, Google searches, and Walmart discount purchasing.... The idea of a Chinese-invented Google is a paradox, a Russian Facebook a joke, a Japanese-inspired Walmart impossible.

Race, tribe, and religion tear many countries apart, notably in the Middle East and the Balkans. Yet at the other extreme, racially uniform nations like Japan and China seem clumsy when dealing with even tiny minorities, since they define their citizens not just by national allegiance, language, and locale, but by the way they look. America alone –albeit often in rancorous and messy fashion — has no particular national ethnic or racial profile..., anyone can be not just an American, but a very successful American.

In one of the most amazing transformations in the history of civilization, a tiny East Coast community of predominantly white European Christian settlers developed a system whose natural logic of reform, self-critique, and reinvention over two centuries became the present melting pot of whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, agnostics, and atheists. As the world is becoming more interconnected through globalization and high tech, it is following the model of a meritocratic America, which remains light years ahead of most nations in defining its citizens by their values and allegiance, not how they worship or the color of their skin.

.... A European might inquire about these immigrants’ accent or background, a Chinese about their racial ancestry, an Indian about their class, a Middle Easterner about their religion. An American will inquire to what degree they can solve a problem, do business, and make a profit.

Statism the world over is crumbling. The Communist Soviet Empire is a distant memory. The redistributionist European Union is neither democratic nor economically sustainable. It will disappear soon, wrecked by the idea that utopians could unite vastly different nations from on high without constitutional democracy. China succeeds to the degree that its Communist rulers abandons their Maoist legacy. Massive redistributive bureaucracies have impoverished much of Africa and the Middle East. America alone values individual freedom and limited government under the rule of law.

The Obama experiment of the last three years did not bring prosperity, and is likely soon to prompt a sharp reaction and a return to the American devotion to individualism and choice that made us the wealthiest nation in history. The American model is the antithesis of the socialism, Communism, theocracy, and statism that have impoverished so much of the world — and the 21st century has brought that fact home in a way few imagined.

Why does the United States continue to reinvent itself, generation after generation, to adapt to a radically changing world? Our ancestral Constitution checks the abuse of power and guarantees the freedom of the individual — all in transparent fashion. And our habits and customs that have evolved over two centuries are grounded in the human desire to be judged by what we do rather than what we look like, or under what circumstances we were born — a fact that explains our vibrant and sometime crass popular culture. The essence of our culture is constant self-critique and reexamination — a messy self-audit that so often fools both ourselves and our critics into thinking that our loud paranoia about decline, rather than our far quieter effort to arrest it, is the real story of America

In short, the 21st century will remain American.

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author most recently of the just-released The End of Sparta, a novel about ancient freedom.



And this, this is why I told Firespin, we have to elect Obama; people will not believe Jimmy Carter until they SEE and EXPERIENCE Jimmy Carter for the mob has a short attention span...


Obama, you see, is our nemesis. He is a totem, the logical manifestation of a warped media, the reification of some crazy — and arrogant — ideas about redistributive politics, the statist economy, and cultural and social life that permeated American life the last forty years. He is the president with a 1,000 faces that we have all seen at work, on TV, throughout American life, and at some point the odds determined that we had to have a rendezvous with him— perhaps a catharsis to teach us the wages of Keynesian debt, of a social policy contrary to human nature with its equality of result doctrines, of an all-powerful, all-growing unaccountable government, of the now hip ambiguity about past American protocols and history. Obama is the exaggeration of all the dubious ideas that arose since the 1960s — brought to fruition on his watch, delivered by mellifluous cadences by an untouchable persona.

In fact, a Barack Obama was long overdue. Had he not appeared out of nowhere in 2008, we would have surely had to invent him.
Victor Davis Hanson

__________________
"Ceterum autem censeo, Liberalismum esse delendum"
A_J, the Stupid

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Long, but important economically and for defense

With only two weeks to go, the so-called super committee may be facing a congressional rank-and-file rebellion from lawmakers on the left and right who have been turned off by the insular group’s high degree of secrecy and fears the entire fast-track process may be unconstitutional. There is an underground sentiment in the city — not reported by the mainstream media yet — that the once highly vaunted super committee may facing serious political trouble.

The super committee is a group of twelve members — six Democrats and six Republicans — who were appointed by House and Senate leadership last summer as part of the deficit deal with the White House. Formally called the “Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction,” the group is mandated to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit relief. Failure to come up with a proposal automatically triggers spending cuts, $500 billion of which are targeted for the Pentagon.

The group potentially wields unbridled power over the country’s economic fate for the next decade, but virtually nothing is known about its deliberations. One House member told PJ Media there is an “eerie silence” from it and from the House and Senate leadership.

Others believe the super committee may now be facing a form of “de-legitimization” as it has proceeded without offering any substantive information to the public or to Congress. There is a whole confluence of complaints afflicting the panel’s credibility, ranging from its obsession with secrecy, serious ethical problems, campaign fundraising conflicts, and questions about the constitutionality of its unconventional process.

A senior conservative congressional staffer told PJ Media, “Is the super committee dead? Not yet. But it’s moving toward it.”

There also are concerns about ethics problems surrounding the super committee. Currently the panel members do not have to report contacts with outside lobbyists or special interests. And the committee’s work is all about money — big money, and big special interests.

Procedurally the super committee process is unprecedented and designed to limit debate. If any proposal secures seven of the twelve votes, the super committee will report out its debt reduction plan to both the Senate and House by November 23. There, all amendments will be forbidden and lawmakers will only be able to vote it up or down.

Most troubling to both the left and the right is that there has been no real information about the super committee substance or deliberations. Originally there was an idea that private discussions would de-politicize the issue of cutting spending and entitlements. But the committee’s operating style seems more akin to a Kremlin operation than a U.S. congressional body. As a result, its credibility has suffered and privately Washington observers believe its reputation is spiraling downward.

There have been no public agendas, records, reports, memos, or documents produced by the group. There have been no written proposals anyone can publicly read or assess. With the exception of a few public meetings, all of the real closed door sessions have been shuttered tight.

Meanwhile, lobbyists with special access to the twelve select members have been marching up to Capitol Hill. The lobbying effort there has been called a “feeding frenzy,” with special interests swarming over Capitol Hill to get their concession or victory from the so-called “gang of twelve.”

The process completely circumvents a century of congressional rules and constitutionally established processes. Normally legislation requires public hearings, committee votes, passage by both houses of Congress, and joint conference committees to hammer out differences. The super committee process is, at best, an extra-constitutional process and perhaps even unconstitutional.

Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican from California, believes it is the latter. “The problem of the super committee, it destroys that entire constitutional framework and ultimately will produce bad public policy,” he told PJ Media.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) has gone further, saying he might eventually challenge the super committee’s constitutionality. He told CNBC: “Well, I would challenge it in the courts and say that is not a constitutional function.” He added,“There’s no authority to have a super Congress who takes over for what the House and Senate are supposed to do.”

At the end, there will be immense pressures on all the lawmakers to vote in favor of their plan. A defeat could spark a further downgrade of the U.S. debt by rating agencies and stoke another steep downturn on Wall Street. Standard and Poor´s downgraded the U.S. debt rating shortly after the $1.2 trillion deficit goal was announced by the White House.

However, since August many House conservatives have been uneasy about the super committee’s work. A staffer related the tensions felt at a recent conservative House briefing led by super committee co-chair Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Reportedly, Hensarling faced blunt criticism from his colleagues. “They generally asked straight up questions,” the staffer related.

At the other end of the spectrum, liberal Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has denounced the super committee too, calling it a “super secret committee.” She has introduced a bill to strip the group of any power, calling it a “bad deal.”

Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) sounded the same theme at a September news conference when he introduced legislation to require more super committee openness.“We cannot allow this committee to dissolve into a super-secret committee – its responsibility is much too great,” he said. Five Republican U.S. senators joined Heller in co-sponsoring the legislation.

Outside of Congress, there is a coalition of openness advocacy organizations that have denounced the closed door proceedings. John Wonderlich, a policy director of the Sunlight Foundation, told PJ Media the super committee was losing congressional support across the political spectrum. “Most lawmakers probably have a certain disgust about how the super committee works because it goes against everything that Congress is supposed to stand for,” he said.

The problem for everyone is that no one in Washington really knows what is happening within the insular group and it will have immense effects on the economy. The super committee process has been unfavorably compared to the Obamacare legislation when backroom deals hammered out in secrecy led to that massive piece of legislation.

Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the liberal group Public Citizen, said one reason for the counter movement against the super committee is that it holds so much authority. He told PJ Media that “virtually everything that’s behind our economy is on the table for these twelve to decide the fate of. This is very unprecedented.”

Holman rejected the entire super committee process. “The super committee has unprecedented powers and unprecedented ties to special interests groups. They are all largely operating in secret,” he said.

The committee has withheld information from so many in Congress that there is the risk of few stakeholders coming to its defense. Is it possible the group’s proposals might be defeated in either the House or Senate when it comes to an up-down vote with no amendments? “I definitely think that’s possible,” Wonderlich told PJ Media.

The lobbying has been intense from an army of K Street lobbyists. There are those with personal connections to the twelve House and Senate members. At least 90 former congressional aides have joined high-priced lobby firms and are contacting their former bosses. Twenty-five of them worked for Democrat Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and fourteen used to work for Senator John Kerry (D-MA).

Then there are campaign fundraising conflicts. Although three super committee members have foresworn campaign fundraising while serving on the super committee, the rest are meeting and greeting donors at receptions and parties.

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the group’s co-chairwoman, is herself one of the biggest Democratic Party fundraisers. She officially serves as the chief fundraiser for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Murray has refused to step down from her post. She participated in a Washington DSCC fundraiser as recently as November 8 in Washington, D.C.

At the opening of the session there were some nods towards openness and promises that members would not be corrupted by their new appointments. Rep. Hersarling said the process would be open and the public would have “adequate time” to review the complex ten year program the group is supposed to draw up. He said:

There will be ample opportunities for the public to have their opinions heard. And like any other committee of Congress, there will also be some discussions among members that will not be public. However, no final product will be adopted without ample public notice and a public vote.

This is not how it worked out. As Wonderlich noted:

All we see is a sort of a shadow of the real negotiations, playing itself out in largely anonymous quotes to the media in the form of staffers describing a plan that their boss has offered or that the opposite side has offered.

Says McClintock, “I strongly suspect that that product will be sadly lacking.”

What could the super committee do to salvage its reputation? Among other things, it could start posting its actual proposals.

As Wonderlich concluded:

They could start posting actual drafts of what they are actually proposing. I think that would go a long way toward people having a sense that what are doing isn’t just backroom horse trading, but it actually somehow involves making decisions about what’s best for the country. So rather than anonymously saying your plan is great, seeing some actual plans would do it in making a little bit of progress toward people taking them seriously.

Richard Pollock
http://pjmedia.com/blog/is-the-supe...ewing-a-rank-and-file-revolt/?singlepage=true

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Today's Obamanomics Survival tip...

In case you haven’t noticed, grocery prices are climbing fast. Two weeks ago, I could buy a gallon of milk for under $3. Today it’s $3.48 at the cheapest store in town. Extreme times call for extreme measures and so, a few months ago when prices started to rise I tried my hand at couponing. Not the kind where crazy people buy 80 bottles of mustard for a dollar, but using coupons to purchase things I would normally buy and use. And while there were some good deals to be had (I once got 6 bottles of Spray’n Wash for $4), if you happen to live in a state without double-coupon deals, it’s a lot of work for a few dollars off. However, those dollars add up and there were times I saved close to 30% off my grocery bill. But I knew I could do better. I was still spending $400 or more a month to feed my family.

When I heard about Once-A-Month Cooking, I was attracted to the idea to save my time. I had no idea that it would cut my grocery bill in half. The book itself merely sparked an idea. I’m sure it has wonderful recipes but I didn’t try any of them (except a fall pork roast that was very good). My kids are picky so I knew if I tried this I would have to use tried recipes they’ll eat. Once-A-Month Cooking suggests you shop on one day and then rest. Then the next day cook for 8 hours and fill your freezer with food for the whole month. I’m a homeschooling mom of two very needy little girls. The idea of trying to cook for 8 hours gave me an instant migraine. To spare me a possible nervous breakdown, I decided to try cooking for just two weeks first.


My Autumn Pork Roast in the crockpot with dried cranberries, fresh apple preserves and apple juice

I shopped for 10 days’ worth of dinners and spent $170. I went home, put the baby to bed and set the older one up with a craft and poured myself a big glass of red wine. The iPod was set on shuffle and I started cooking. I chopped up chicken into bite sized pieces and put them in freezer bags, I started spaghetti sauce, browned 6 pork chops, sauteed vegetables for lasagna and chopped up 6 sets of veggies to make stir-fries. Three hours went by and I was done! There was a lot of clean-up to do, but the food was all prepared or semi-prepared and ready for freezing for later use. I had two lasagnas, six stir-fries, a pork roast, six pork chops, three bags of spaghetti, two chicken potpies, and more. What I thought would last 10 days lasted 22. I got through almost an entire month on $170. The only trips to the grocery store I made over the next few weeks were for butter, milk and eggs.

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2011/1...y-store-with-extreme-cooking/?singlepage=true



Hey U_D, what was the price of milk when this Triumphal thread began?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Rumors are flying around Europe that Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Sarkozy of France are making plans for a smaller eurozone, including provisions for expelling a member. British Prime Minister David Cameron has instructed his cabinet to make contingency plans for the break-up of the eurozone. (Britain is not in the eurozone, but London is home to the biggest financial center in Europe, and so will be deeply affected by any break-up.) Greeks are openly talking about the shock of a likely return to the drachma. We may be mere moments away from the self-destruction of a cornerstone of the European project.

This is good news for me. A few weeks ago I bet the brilliant economist David K. Henderson that Greece, Italy and Spain would be out of the euro by March 2013 (for avoidance of doubt, we agreed that whatever currency union Germany was part of then would count as the euro). David agreed with me that the currency union would break up, but did not believe it would happen as fast as I thought. On his side, he cited Milton Friedman’s observation that his predictions were always right in terms of direction, but wrong in time – free-marketers, it seems, have a habit of predicting things to happen sooner than they actually do.

My reasoning, however, was that any break-up of the euro would happen extremely quickly. The problem, as I see it, is that as soon as the dam breaks, the deluge will be devastating. If Greece goes, then who is to say that Italy or Spain, both suffering the same sort of fiscal problems as Greece, won’t be next? The result is likely to be that there will be a flight to safety, with investors withdrawing their money from institutions in those countries, and taking it to Germany. Such a flight would be a tremendous shock to Spain and Italy, and bring utter ruin to them. They could not survive in the eurozone, and would default out of it. Chaos would ensue.

I therefore suspect that the Germans, along with the French, will not allow this. For the sake of prudence, I would suspect a sudden, surprise reduction in the size of the eurozone, with Spain, Italy and Greece (and perhaps others) returning to their national currencies almost overnight, leaving a New Euro zone consisting of the more stable economies of the current eurozone.

This will, of course, be a real shock for the former eurozone members. Bad as it will be, however, it will not be as disastrous as the alternative. Expulsion will be better than collapse. Moreover, there will be an upside for the former members. They will once again have control of their monetary policy. Wages and internal costs will contract, but this should provide a comparative advantage within the EU that they currently do not have. Their export trade will boom.

Moreover, these countries have an innate advantage in that they are excellent tourist destinations. The disadvantage of having to change money will quickly be outweighed by much more affordable holidays. The influx of foreign money from tourism will be most welcome to these countries. Assuming that they also take the opportunity to cut back their bloated public sectors, investing in more sustainable parts of the economy instead, the future will look rosy for these newly liberated economies. Europe will become a region of competitive federalism, much more like the United States (even if it lacks a single currency).

That is why the euro was always a bad bet for Europe. The economies of the eurozone were too diverse to be marshaled together under a monetary union. The strains were bound to show eventually. The only question remaining is whether these strains are going to lead to clean or violent breaks.

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/11/14/the-euro-was-always-a-bad-bet

 

[patrick1]

It's not right-wing either.

There's only one group that matters, the individual. We do not form groups, we express ideas that attract individuals to them and cause them, through reason to act according to the Natural Law of Capitalism whereas mutualism is a Statist, therefore Socialist, way of thinking and knowing Mises as you do, then you know that any intervention, no matter how noble in theory, leads to eventual need to address the unseen consequences of the intervention which even Alinsky talked about.

Therefore, if you want to say you are a Libertarian, I will respect your right to call yourself a Libertarian, but I will also firmly say that you are wrong, confused, or simply lying (maybe just to yourself, as I said, I've been down that road) about who you are economically.

If the base premise you hold that the state has a role to play in determining economic outcomes, then you are simply, and clearly, on The Road to Serfdom.

The Federal government exists to provide external security and diplomacy as well as a Judiciary and law against injury, not much else.

Now, if your community wants to turn itself into a Soviet or an Anarchy, more power to you, local government "knows" best and people are free to vote with their feet.

So feel free to call yourself a Mutualist Libertarian and congratulate yourself on your ability to find others lost in this logic trap as a clear validation of your belief system, but what you are doing on a well-researched and well-articulated level is nothing more that the shallow "I'm a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal" mantra that we so often hear the mouth-breathers midlessly chanting.

You do a lot of cutting and pasting, mostly from journalists rather than thinkers, but don't tell me what you actually believe.

I believe in left-wing libertarianism. We can live together in consensual harmony. What do you bellieve in?

You say <<There's only one group that matters, the individual. >> I challenge you to quote me something from Mises or Hayek that says that. It is an irrational statement and I don't accept they would have believed it. I am prepared to believe Ayn Rand said something like it, but that's different, she wasn't much of a thinker.

But I'm very happy to withdraw my allegation, if you can find me a single supporting statement from Mises or Hayek that backs up this idea. They were brave pioneers of a certain point of view - though Mises was also known as a pain in the neck, even Hayek got fed up with him personally - and they were intellectually sensible, even if, in my mind, obviously wrong.

Just back up this one remark of yours, go on.

Please be tolerant. You come over as rather intolerant. I don't know why you might be. Isn't llibertarianism partly about mutual tolerance? Isn't all this very American-centred cut and paste stuff partly about tolerance? Are you then tolerant of other points of view? Do you believe in tolerance, even of those you strongly disagree with? I do. Do you? I said earlier, I'll sit down with the local man with swastikas on his arms, and chat to him about anything, many of my leftie friends think I should shun him, but I don't accept what they say. Are you that tolerant? What do you believe in?

Or are you just paid to cut and paste this stuff?
Patrick.

 

[koalabear]

http://data.moneycentral.msn.com/scripts/chrtsrv.dll?Symbol=$us:INDU&width=300&height=200&E1=0&D4=1&Legend=0&AF=2&Banner=5&palette=2&C1=3&E8=1

 

[IrezumiKiss]

You do a lot of cutting and pasting, mostly from journalists rather than thinkers, but don't tell me what you actually believe.

I believe in left-wing libertarianism. We can live together in consensual harmony. What do you bellieve in?

You say <<There's only one group that matters, the individual. >> I challenge you to quote me something from Mises or Hayek that says that. It is an irrational statement and I don't accept they would have believed it. I am prepared to believe Ayn Rand said something like it, but that's different, she wasn't much of a thinker.

But I'm very happy to withdraw my allegation, if you can find me a single supporting statement from Mises or Hayek that backs up this idea. They were brave pioneers of a certain point of view - though Mises was also known as a pain in the neck, even Hayek got fed up with him personally - and they were intellectually sensible, even if, in my mind, obviously wrong.

Just back up this one remark of yours, go on.

Please be tolerant. You come over as rather intolerant. I don't know why you might be. Isn't llibertarianism partly about mutual tolerance? Isn't all this very American-centred cut and paste stuff partly about tolerance? Are you then tolerant of other points of view? Do you believe in tolerance, even of those you strongly disagree with? I do. Do you? I said earlier, I'll sit down with the local man with swastikas on his arms, and chat to him about anything, many of my leftie friends think I should shun him, but I don't accept what they say. Are you that tolerant? What do you believe in?

Or are you just paid to cut and paste this stuff?
Patrick.

Well played, sir.

http://30.media.tumblr.com/v8Y1VvbEma2efk3vWvg3NmQm_400.gif

 

[mercury14]

You do a lot of cutting and pasting, mostly from journalists rather than thinkers, but don't tell me what you actually believe.

I believe in left-wing libertarianism. We can live together in consensual harmony. What do you bellieve in?

You say <<There's only one group that matters, the individual. >> I challenge you to quote me something from Mises or Hayek that says that. It is an irrational statement and I don't accept they would have believed it. I am prepared to believe Ayn Rand said something like it, but that's different, she wasn't much of a thinker.

But I'm very happy to withdraw my allegation, if you can find me a single supporting statement from Mises or Hayek that backs up this idea. They were brave pioneers of a certain point of view - though Mises was also known as a pain in the neck, even Hayek got fed up with him personally - and they were intellectually sensible, even if, in my mind, obviously wrong.

Just back up this one remark of yours, go on.

Please be tolerant. You come over as rather intolerant. I don't know why you might be. Isn't llibertarianism partly about mutual tolerance? Isn't all this very American-centred cut and paste stuff partly about tolerance? Are you then tolerant of other points of view? Do you believe in tolerance, even of those you strongly disagree with? I do. Do you? I said earlier, I'll sit down with the local man with swastikas on his arms, and chat to him about anything, many of my leftie friends think I should shun him, but I don't accept what they say. Are you that tolerant? What do you believe in?

Or are you just paid to cut and paste this stuff?
Patrick.

Patrick,

He is not tolerant of those different than him because he's not a libertarian. (among other reasons). You're talking to just another conservative Republican who wears a bad-ass libertarian jacket to school so that everyone sees him in it... except he forgot to take off the TJ Maxx tag off the sleeve.

 

[mercury14]

You do a lot of cutting and pasting, mostly from journalists rather than thinkers, but don't tell me what you actually believe.

Or are you just paid to cut and paste this stuff?
Patrick.

I suspect this may be the case. Plenty of websites pay folks to go out and C&P their material to increase traffic. These guys paste thousands of articles every year from just a few sources.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Only one post by Koala? Let me guess. Sky isn't falling is it? Are we up in the stocks or simply not down more than fifty points? Honestly I haven't checked and won't until I get in my car.

 

[unregistered]

 

[koalabear]

Only one post by Koala? Let me guess. Sky isn't falling is it? Are we up in the stocks or simply not down more than fifty points? Honestly I haven't checked and won't until I get in my car.

You are to stupid to notice, but the graph updates itself throughout the day.

 

[koalabear]

BUY suckers BUY!

Pelosi fires back at report on 'insider trading'


A report on CBS' "60 minutes" on Sunday said Pelosi was among several lawmakers — including Republicans such as House Speaker John Boehner — who had profited from transactions that raised the possibility of conflicts of interest.

The report said Pelosi and her husband participated in a 2008 IPO involving Visa even as legislation that would have hurt credit card companies was being considered in the House. Pelosi was speaker at the time and the legislation failed to pass in that session.

A recent study of House members' stock transactions showed them beating the markets' return by about 6 percentage points annually from 1985 to 2001. A 2004 study involving the same authors showed senators beating the market by 12 percentage points annually.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45287592/ns/politics-more_politics/#.TsGKJfF21Is

 

[koalabear]

Europe’s debt crisis raising odds of US recession

The European debt crisis is raising the odds of a U.S. recession, with economic contraction more likely than not by early 2012, according to research from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.

While it is difficult to gauge the odds precisely, an analysis of leading U.S. economic indicators suggests a rising chance of a recession through the end of the year and into early next year, researchers at the regional Fed bank wrote Monday. The risk of recession recedes after the second half of 2012, they found.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45290306/ns/business-world_business/#.TsGN5PF21Is

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[koalabear]

But, but, UD says different...

The voices in his head cause confusion, then you have that sugar high from Twinkies added in.

 

[mercury14]

But, but, UD says different...

Koaladumbfuck edited out this portion of the article since it doesn't support the right wing narrative.

"A Nov. 4 Reuters poll of primary dealers shows Wall Street economists see a 30 percent chance of a U.S. recession next year, down from 35.5 percent a month earlier."

Just sayin'... You might not want to hang your hat on the word of a notorious liar.

 

[Sean Renaud]

I suspect that Congress exempted itself from insider trading laws.

More accurately it's not illegal for them. Never was. It's the benefit of being in a position where you get information or can cause shit to happen. It should be illegal they should be in jail. It would require regulating business and no Republican would ever support passing new regulation to strangle businesses so why are you harping on it. This should be LT and UD not you and Koala.

 

[Disgustipated]

You are to stupid to notice, but the graph updates itself throughout the day.

*Too, you ignorant fuck.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

*Too, you ignorant fuck.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/39/2010/10/d9b77ed2efb0853166c7b99fb945686c/original.gif

 

[koalabear]

Koaladumbfuck edited out this portion of the article since it doesn't support the right wing narrative.

"A Nov. 4 Reuters poll of primary dealers shows Wall Street economists see a 30 percent chance of a U.S. recession next year, down from 35.5 percent a month earlier."

Just sayin'... You might not want to hang your hat on the word of a notorious liar.

Edited out, there's is a link there stupid, MORON.