THEY'RE TAKING OVER!!! politics thread

by **drsmooth** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 09:50:25

Here in the American Spectator is a matter-of-fact sort of radical take on our current state of affairs. Its probably longer than need be, but the first several paragraphs may suffice to get the gist (I hope so, that's all I've read so far).

If the teabaggers (mentioned directly only once in the piece) spoke or wrote like this, they'd get better press.

EDIT: oh, damn. The author waxes whiny, anecdotal, and unconvincing about the attributes of his ruling class by page 2. Fingers crossed he gets back on track.

EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

EDIT2: he's also weakest when he uses health reform as a source of his examples of the perversity of results produced by our ruling class. The examples are well-expressed, but his facts are ill-chosen.

and stuff like this

the country class's characteristic cultural venture -- the homeschool movement -- stresses the classics across the board in science, literature, music, and history even as the ruling class abandons them.

just looks like wishful thinking on his part.

Still, I'm here to say I admire Codevilla's style. Who can't love lines like this:

Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don't have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.

while I think he places too much emphasis on "nowadays" (was it not ever thus?), his summation is clear-eyed and persuasive.

by **ashton** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:05:23

drsmooth wrote:EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

I think you misread that. He said diversions of wealth, not divisions. He's right. The ethanol industry exists because of government mandates and subsidies, the oil industry exists because people want oil.

by **jerseyhoya** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:06:14

John Edwards, move over. There's a new standard bearer for the most unpopular person PPP has polled in any state: Levi Johnston in Alaska.

Edwards' 15/72 favorability on our January North Carolina poll had set the initial record for futility but Johnston matches the 72% unfavorable number while only 6% of Alaskans see him in a positive light. Those poll numbers probably don't bode too well for his Wasilla Mayoral candidacy.

Johnston is reviled pretty universally across the board but he's a little more popular with Democrats (15/61) than he is with Republicans (4/76) or independents (4/74).

It's hard to muster a favorability rating lower than 6%- that's about where the average person off the street we polled on a lark would be- so Johnson may hold this dubious distinction for a long time. Who besides like Hitler or Osama Bid Laden do you think we could poll who would be less popular in some particular state?

by **ashton** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:10:48

10. I oppose the don’t ask, don’t tell policy of the military and believe that all same sex partners should be banned from combat duty
in the military because of the propensity to transmit blood borne diseases in the theater of battle.

That's why they oppose Don't Ask Don't Tell?

15. I advocated moving our currency to a debt free supply-side labor based currency.

Is this just a random collection of words is is there a coherent idea behind this sentence?

by **drsmooth** » Fri Sep 03, 2010 11:59:51

ashton wrote:
drsmooth wrote:EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

I think you misread that. He said diversions of wealth, not divisions. He's right. The ethanol industry exists because of government mandates and subsidies, the oil industry exists because people want oil.

the oil industry exists in its current form because of extensive governmental interventions beneficial to that industry. Your assertion that it's "because people want oil" is a trifle simplistic. Like a lot of trifles. Some of the biggest trifles you can imagine.

by **allentown** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 14:09:49

drsmooth wrote:
ashton wrote:
drsmooth wrote:EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

I think you misread that. He said diversions of wealth, not divisions. He's right. The ethanol industry exists because of government mandates and subsidies, the oil industry exists because people want oil.

the oil industry exists in its current form because of extensive governmental interventions beneficial to that industry. Your assertion that it's "because people want oil" is a trifle simplistic. Like a lot of trifles. Some of the biggest trifles you can imagine.

It's even hard to tell what this means. "Present form?" The present form of the oil industry is driven largely by the very high cost and risk of exploring in today's difficult production areas, like deep water, unstable places like Nigeria, and Canada's oil sands. To do this work successfully, an oil company needs to be both very large and international. There also seems to be an advantage to integration, but that may be a legacy of the costliness of doing the research to perfect petroleum refining and to build oil refineries. It is possible, I guess, to separate refining from production, although refining profits are so cyclical that totally decoupling refining from production seems iffy. Still, in recent years we have companies that are just refiners, or just retail marketers, or a combination of retail and refining. We still have some, essentially wildcatting, production only companies, but they really aren't well equipped to venture into the difficult production areas that now predominate. I don't see government incentives as greatly impacting this shape of the industry. The oil industry took off and grew because petroleum and its products were clearly superior and more economical than the coal and whale oil that preceded them. Ethanol cannot say the same. Without government mandates and subsidy, there would not be an ethanol industry in this country. It is a solution in search of a problem, apart from 'how do I get votes in the Iowa caucus?"

by **drsmooth** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 21:03:46

allentown wrote:
It's even hard to tell what this means.

It's hard if it's your habit to ignore diseconomies in your blithe presumption that the oil bidness is unaffected. Governments don't impact businesses merely by introducing 'incentives'; they can also do it by refraining from imposing constraints, neglecting to encourage diversification of energy options

by **jerseyhoya** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 22:12:42

Obama to Pitch Permanent Research Tax Credit

This would be nice Mr. President

by **TenuredVulture** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 22:42:23

Watch the GOP filibuster it.

by **Werthless** » Sat Sep 04, 2010 23:28:44

drsmooth wrote:
ashton wrote:
drsmooth wrote:EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

I think you misread that. He said diversions of wealth, not divisions. He's right. The ethanol industry exists because of government mandates and subsidies, the oil industry exists because people want oil.

the oil industry exists in its current form because of extensive governmental interventions beneficial to that industry. Your assertion that it's "because people want oil" is a trifle simplistic. Like a lot of trifles. Some of the biggest trifles you can imagine.

I hope you see the irony of your statement being so open-ended as to be devoid of value.

by **drsmooth** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 11:54:29

Werthless wrote:
drsmooth wrote:
ashton wrote:
drsmooth wrote:EDIT: dunno if he's back on track; he's able to write, without a trace of irony,

The ethanol industry and its ensuing diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies

while making nary a peep about the oil industry and the "divisions of wealth" IT has produced.

I think you misread that. He said diversions of wealth, not divisions. He's right. The ethanol industry exists because of government mandates and subsidies, the oil industry exists because people want oil.

the oil industry exists in its current form because of extensive governmental interventions beneficial to that industry. Your assertion that it's "because people want oil" is a trifle simplistic. Like a lot of trifles. Some of the biggest trifles you can imagine.
I hope you see the irony of your statement being so open-ended as to be devoid of value.

to the contrary - "the oil industry exists because people want oil" is devoid of "value", because any human activity can be said to exist because people want something. the thrust of my response was that the contours of the oil industry - like those of any human activity - depend on people's decisions, rather than some implicit "laws of nature" that go uninflected by the people with wants. Wants that come in all sorts of shades of intensity and clarity.

Your inability to model my reply - which is apparently your touchstone for relevance - is a shortcoming of your comprehension, not my casual observation.

One of the big problems for me with crypto-libertarians like Codevilla is their insistence on an "origin story". a land of milk & honey to which retreat is not only possible but emphatically necessary. I tend to put you on the spot when the topic is libertarian beliefs, Werthless, and I'm doing it again: why such childishness?

by **jerseyhoya** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:00:35

With the midterm campaign entering its final two months, Democrats acknowledged that several races could quickly move out of their reach, including re-election bids by Representatives Betsy Markey of Colorado, Tom Perriello of Virginia, Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio and Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland, whose districts were among the 55 Democrats won from Republicans in the last two election cycles.

Democrats Plan Political Triage to Retain House

Kilroy, whom I haven't read a thing about since she got elected, losing by a lot will be a top ten election night moment for me.

by **drsmooth** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:19:36

Joel Kotkin, writing in Amer. Enterprise Institute's The American, outlines an urban future worthy of Marx, then clumsily concludes that what's needed is a sprinkling of magical economic dust that will resurrect the sort of jobs that produce robust middle economic classes.

Economists of all political stripes are of course guilty of making the same blunder, yearning for the same bygone time.

Those jobs are gone, and getting gone-er. "Redefining sustainability" (Kotkin's code for loosening those annoying environmental restrictions that curb reliance on inconvenient externalities) and the like are lovely phrasemaking, logorrhea emitted in an attempt to ignore that urban economic futures currently look much more like Lang's Metropolis than even something as relatively benign as Bellamy's Looking Backward.

by **pacino** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:23:36

kotkin is an anti-urbanist who cleverly hides it. i wouldn't trust him as far as i could throw him

by **pacino** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:31:56

So I just saw that Beck stated 700K showed up to his rally...uhm, estimates were for 87K, were they not? How does he get away with inflation like that?

by **jerseyhoya** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:40:47

pacino wrote:So I just saw that Beck stated 700K showed up to his rally...uhm, estimates were for 87K, were they not? How does he get away with inflation like that?

The Park Service doesn't do estimates anymore after the Million Man March people threatened to sue them for saying a million people weren't there. I'm not sure where you're getting this 87k number. Seemed like a lot more than that there, though less than 700k.

by **kopphanatic** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:41:51

jerseyhoya wrote:
pacino wrote:So I just saw that Beck stated 700K showed up to his rally...uhm, estimates were for 87K, were they not? How does he get away with inflation like that?

The Park Service doesn't do estimates anymore after the Million Man March people threatened to sue them for saying a million people weren't there. I'm not sure where you're getting this 87k number. Seemed like a lot more than that there, though less than 700k.

CBS News. Michelle Bachmann's estimate is up to 1.6 million btw.

by **kopphanatic** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:42:53

And Beck originally had it at 300K. He's gradually inflating the number. Classic propaganda move, and his simpleton followers will believe it.

by **pacino** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 12:44:46

it seemed pretty unlikely for the million man march to actually get a million because the pool of black men is pretty small. still quite a feat at 800k or so, though

by **drsmooth** » Sun Sep 05, 2010 13:02:12

pacino wrote:kotkin is an anti-urbanist who cleverly hides it. i wouldn't trust him as far as i could throw him

for me it's not so much a matter of trust as a matter of truncated imagination. His imagination of the future is truncated by his conviction that there's a way to go back: back to an urban middle class of simple, sturdy, yeoman-farmer-like, long-term, pension-producing employment.

That's gone. Models that predicate an economic future on it are unimaginative, at best.

Archived

THEY'RE TAKING OVER!!! politics thread