I did say I’d never come here again, unless to collect a very large sum of money from one of the larger Hollywood studios. But here I am in Washington – a horrid place, if you ask me. More details when I have managed to get some sleep.
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Please don’t encamp your troops in the Capitol and burn down the White House again. That was rude.
On second thought, please do.
I have my lizard face mask, and will wear it with pride.
After an inconceivably long journey, I have laid out the sum of $8.50 on a glass of gin, and am wondering whether I should go to bed, or make a cup of coffee.
Why can’t it be both?
Coffee stains on the sheets are an embarrassment?
Remember York (now Toronto) had been burned by American troops – not that two wrongs make a right (just context). I believe that Harry Smith (one of the more colourful British generals in history – see his life story) was at the burning (I doubt he approved of it).
Washington has a vile climate and location – which for many decades was a GOOD thing, as it discouraged people from living there (and near there – in M county Maryland and F county Virginia). With the New Deal that all changed….
At least the domestic government of D.C. used to be O.K. (ish) when Congress actually ran the District – but since “home rule” (at the start of the 1960s) it has become a corrupt cess pit (like so many other cities). There was an effort to reform the schools – but the moderate left Mayor was beaten by (yet another) hard left Mayor, and the education official who wanted to reform things (at least a bit) was forced out.
By the way by using the word “left” I know I am being lazy – no I do not mean Frederick Bastiat and so on.
I would like to visit the USA before I die.
Some old university colleagues have branded me, more than once, as “a closet-American”. It would be interesting to go there, then, and see whether I either stick out like a sore thumb, or instead I disappear. Then, the truth will be discovered.
Um, much as I am very angry with and upset by the mess this place’s “leaders” and “intelligentsia” have made of it … I sort of like it here. :>)
Nothing wrong with it that tarring and feathering some percent of the population and sending them back to the Mother Country to deal with wouldn’t fix. :>))
David, be sure to visit the Aviation and Space Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution, and the Frick. Unfortunately you are too late to see the Cherry Blossoms….
And get somebody to take you on the Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park. In fact, once you’re there anyway, keep going when the Drive ends and stay on the Blue Ridge Parkway, all the way through the Smokies to Gatlinburg, Tenn. There’s nothing that important for you to do in DC anyway. :>)))
By the way, Gatlinburg is Tourist Hell. Sorry about that. But the whole drive is worth it. It will be slow, as you’ll want to stop at every overlook and take pictures. Unfortunately it’s probably a little late in the season for the best Fall colors. :>(
Oooops! WP and not DD is going to DC. Sorry about that. 🙁 However, the point remains.
I have a prediction to make, and this seems like the most recent “likely to have ongoing comments” post to register it in. I’m not going to tell you what the prediction is, just that it concerns the Libertarian Alliance site and its content over the next few days. I’ve saved the prediction as a text file. The MD5 hash of the text is CDF46CE4B07BB386B983E831DD670DB1 … so when the prediction comes true and I reveal its actual text, anyone can check to see that I made the prediction and didn’t modify it between the time I made it and the time I published it. Have a nice day.
Well that’s mysterious.
I’d better falsify his prediction by publishing the Introduction to /Space Gods from Atlantis/ which I began in 1986 and spent so long sniggering over that I never finished it.
I hope the prediction of Thomas is that the people of Kansas will vote to support smaller government – but I doubt this prediction will come true.
My fear is that, this time tomorrow, the RINOs will be saying……..
“Look the people do not want lower taxes and less government spending (an end to arts subsidies and so on) – Governor Brownback has been defeated”.
And…..
“Look the people want us to work with Mr Obama to amend Obamacare (not end it) and work to go along with other Progressive statism – look they have sent Mr Orman (with all his Soros support) to the United States Senate”.
The Economist magazine (and so on) will be filled with evil glee if this all happens – which it, most likely, will.
Paul,
No, I do not predict that the Libertarian ticket will win in Kansas (or anywhere else). I expect the big-government Democrat to beat the big-government Republican incumbent for governor, and for the big-government Democrat-endorsed “independent” to beat the big-government Republican incumbent for US Senate.
My state by state Senate and gubernatorial predictions are available at my blog. Short and sweet, I’ve predicted that the Republicans will pick up two seats (net) in the US Senate and lose 4.5 (net) state governorships (the 0.5 is because in Alaska the likely winner is a former Republican running as an “independent” but endorsed by the Democrats with a Democrat running mate).
Thomas.
I did not mention the “Libertarian ticket” – so you are being dishonest (to use your favoured word – you are LYING Thomas).
What I did say is that Governor Brownback in Kansas has cut taxes (which he has) and resisted government spending (for example got rid of the States Art Commission – and fought the government teachers, whose organisations hate him with a passion, always a good sign).
I could also have pointed out Senator Roberts is not in trouble because he has supported Farm Bills in the past (there we would AGREE that he was in the wrong) – but because the last Farm Bill went too far for him, and that the left want to get him out because of his opposition to Obamacare (and so on) and to preserve Harry Reid’s control of the Senate.
Presently the objective result of Libertarian candidates for various offices (in places such as Florida and North Carolina) is to help the Democrats – to actively help people who oppose the reduction of taxation in places such as North Carolina.
I (being the sweet, tender hearted, person that I am) am prepared to accept that the Libertarian candidates “know not what they do” – that they are just idiots.
However, I am not prepared to accept that about you Thomas. You are helping the forces of collectivism ON PURPOSE. I remind you of your own words on another thread – that you “hate all large corporations”. Your envy driven hatred of those who have more stuff than you is the basis of your political position. And, please, no dishonest pretence that you just hate organisations (such as Churches or trading companies or other bodies corporate) having more stuff than you – you hate all rich individuals also (so be honest about it my dear).
In theory there may be differences between Black Flag “anarchists” and Red Flag Marxists – in practice there is no difference (you both are driven by envy). This is why Blag Flaggers and Red Flaggers cooperate in such organisations as “Occupy” and the Chicago Teachers Union (and the other teacher unions and “associations” round the United States).
What sort of “anarchist” backs collectivist government teacher organisations?
The sort of “anarchist” who is hoping for the defeat of Governor Brownback in Kansas today.
Or the sort of “anarchist” who sent letter bombs to try and kill people for the “crime” of being rich – or (rather) in practice for the “crime” of working for rich people (as it was the servants who opened the mail and got their faces blown off).
“What I did say is that Governor Brownback in Kansas has cut taxes (which he has) and resisted government spending”
In actuality, Kansas state revenues (also known as “taxes”) have gone UP every year since Brownback took office, as have Kansas state expenditures (also known as “spending”). Not that either of those are entirely his fault. He’s just the governor. There’s a legislature and his options are to sign or veto their budgets (the 2014-15 budget which he signed a few months ago brings annual spending to more than $1 billion per year more than when he took office).
As far as Roberts is concerned, I could point out that he supports the environmentalist “global warming” agenda, voted for the unconstitutional USA PATRIOT Act, and supports the massive government land thefts required to enable the “Keystone XL” corporate welfare boondoggle. But yes, I’m willing to accept that his farm bill vote is what juiced up the left against him.
“Presently the objective result of Libertarian candidates for various offices (in places such as Florida and North Carolina) is to help the Democrats”
In your imagination, perhaps. In reality, polling shows that in Florida today, Libertarian candidate Adrian Wyllie is probably hurting Democrat Charlie Crist more than he’s hurting Republican Rick Scott. The polling isn’t clear on whether Sean Haugh is hurting Democrat Kay Hagan or Republican Thom Tillis worse, but a Republican PAC has been running ads favorably comparing Haugh to Hagan in the hope of using him to inflict electoral damage on her. And in Wisconsin, there’s a good chance that if Republican incumbent Scott Walker squeaks by to re-election, it will be because the Libertarian candidate has the same last name as the Democratic candidate (Burke) and because, similarly to North Carolina, a Republican PAC has been running ads pitching the Libertarian Burke as more “socially liberal” than the Democratic Burke (who, by the way, is an accomplished businesswoman — former head of European operations for Trek bicycle company) Democrat running against a political careerist Republican).
Which party do Libertarian candidates hurt more? There’s no clear and obvious answer — it varies by candidate and election. And ultimately, votes belong to voters, not to parties or candidates. I cast my vote for the Libertarian slate. If there wasn’t a Libertarian slate, I wouldn’t vote for a Democrat or Republican just to vote.
And no, I don’t “hope” for the defeat of Brownback. I don’t give a rat’s ass who wins that election. I just PREDICT that Brownback will lose, based on the polling data and other information I’ve seen. There’s a difference.
FWIW, Brownback won, Roberts won big, and the LP candidates all came in at about 4%. In my own state, PA, our rather disappointing Republican governor (and I mean disappointing viewed as a Republican, not just from my more libertarian vantage point) went down big time as expected. The Dem who replaces him is expected to work for more taxes and less guns – just the opposite of my preference.
“Congratulations” on your defeat, in Kansas, Thomas. It also appears the LP failed in its task of helping big government Democrat candidates in North Carolina and other States also. I thought that you would be successful in your evil task (I admit that) , I am glad to have been proved wrong.
You “hate all large corporations” (to quote your words from another thread – your defence of the latest post by Kevin) – what is the word “large” doing there? Why should not hate small churches, clubs, trading companies (limited liability and so on were present in both private Law Merchant and in Church Canon Law, often used in commercial matters, as long ago as the Middle Ages) why just “large” ones? It is because your “hatred” is based on the amount of stuff these companies have (not on the legal nature of a company) – in short your political position (like that of Black Flaggers generally) is based upon ENVY. And would be directed against rich individuals as much as against “large” companies.
More generally it seems that a message of class warfare envy (trying to smear “the corporations”) and Jew bashing (“we are not against Jews – just against Zionists”) is not wildly popular. Father C. may have had a popular radio show in the 1930s and sold a lot of copies of his magazine “Social Justice” (claiming that Franklin Roosevelt, of all people, was a tool of Jewish big business – the corporations), but he did not actually win any elections did he? The Black Flag message (either in its Fascist or its “anarchist” forms) is rarely popular in the United States – as both forms of the Black Flag message (supposedly so different) are based upon ENVY and this is not a attractive thing.
And (as you know) as a proportion of the economy (which is what actually matters) both government spending and taxes have down in Kansas – which is what you friends (the government teachers, the government are subsidy lovers and so on) are so angry about. I say “your friends” – because Kevin came out in support of the teacher organisations (elsewhere) and you did not oppose him (rather the contrary).
It is hardly likely that such people as the art subsidy lovers and the government teachers would HATE Governor Browback (which they do) had he really increased the size and scope of government.
Mr Holland – you are correct, Sadly Penn will now have a tax increase and more regulations (on firearms and so on).
If Libertarians want to do some good (and even most LP types are not like Thomas – they are not “anarchist” Black Flaggers) they would work in Republican Primary contests to make sure that RINO types lost and better candidates were chosen.
As for getting rid of government entirely – I think Tolkien (of “The Lord Of The Rings”) had the heart of the matter……
Tolkien told his son Christopher that he was open to opposing the existence of the state in principle, but would never call himself an “anarchist” as anarchists (under the cover, the mask, of “liberty” and “freedom”) just wanted to plant bombs and kill people who had more income and wealth than they did Sadly this remains true – even (for example) “free migration” turns out to be a cover for the looting of landowners (with the excuse that the landowners have not “justly acquired” their land).
Those who march behind the Black Flag (declaring that their oath of loyalty to the United States expired when they stopped getting PAID – so much for “always faithful”) are driven by the same ENVY as those who march behind the Red Flag (which is why they work together in the “Occupy” movement and the teacher unions for the common goal of “Social Justice”). But most libertarians (including most LP members) are NOTHING LIKE THIS – they need to rise up and reject deceivers (like Thomas and Kevin).
It is the same in the other countries of the world – envy (down-with-the-rich like some stupid television entertainment show – showing every city as controlled by “big business” when, in reality, business is being driven out of the cities by taxes and regulations) is not the route to liberty, it is the route to reducing the world to ashes and dried blood.
Someone (such as the script writers of television entertainment shows) who blames the horrors of so many American cities (and other cities around the world) on “the rich” or “the big corporations” is, at best, a lunatic (given the level of taxes and regulations that now exist) and they should be treated as such.
“Are you really saying that if someone does not cut the number of DOLLARS (the raw number – not the proportion of the economy) in taxes and spending that they have not cut the size of government?”
Absolutely. The “as a percentage of GDP” dodge is a fun dodge, but a dodge is all it is.
If the state has any legitimate functions at all (I don’t believe it does but am willing to entertain the idea), there’s no reason whatsoever to believe that those legitimate functions bear a 1:1 scalar relationship to population or production. This is especially true of national governments (when GDP grows by 1%, do the borders get 1% longer and does the Navy need to have 1% more sailor and the Army 1% more soldiers), but true of all governments.
Just in case I have been unfair to Thomas…. (as everyone knows I am tender hearted person, filled with the milk of human kindness…..).
Are you really saying that if someone does not cut the number of DOLLARS (the raw number – not the proportion of the economy) in taxes and spending that they have not cut the size of government?
If that is your standard then (for example) President Calvin Coolidge did not reduce the size of the Federal government in the 1920s.
And, by the way Thomas, if you decide to send any letter (or other) bombs to kill people for the “crime” of being rich (as your Black Flag people have done so often in the past), please be careful how you make them (your training in the U.S. Marines may not have covered this matter) as if a mistake is made during construction, such bombs can go off prematurely and blow of the face of the person making them.
“… Washington – a horrid place …”
Having been born in that fetid swamp, I agree.
You are up early Thomas – or have you relocated to the United Kingdom (if so we could meet up at some point)?
So you ARE saying that someone has not reduced the size of government if they have not reduced the raw number of Dollars spent. That the size of government as a proportion of the economy is a “dodge”. So (for example) if a person cuts the income tax in half they have not “cut taxes” if they get in more Dollars at the new rate than they did at the old rate. And that if government spending takes a smaller proportion of the economy, it has not “really” been cut – if the raw number of Dollars does not go down.
What an astonishingly misguided person you are Thomas.
Mr. Marks,
I’m up at my usual time (around 6am Eastern in the US), as I put out a daily morning newsletter for libertarians and like to have it in their inboxes before 9am.
“So you ARE saying that someone has not reduced the size of government if they have not reduced the raw number of Dollars spent. ”
Dollars are the major metric, but I suppose we could measure it in terms of employees, projects, whatever. The math isn’t difficult. A bigger number represents more than does a smaller number.
It’s true that your average obviously illegitimate government program tends to scale 1:1 to population, GDP, etc. For example, if you are handing out welfare checks to every poor person and if the poverty rate is 5%, then for every 100 population added you’re going to be handing out five more welfare checks.
But to the extent that there could conceivably be legitimate government functions, they don’t scale at 1:1. Your borders don’t get 1% longer (and thus require 1% more border guards, 1% more customs stations, etc.) every time your GDP grows by 1%. Just because your GDP grew by 1% that doesn’t mean the threat of military invasion you face also grew by 1% and that you therefore need to spend 1% more on your army and navy. Presumably a higher GDP will actually LOWER property crime, and even if it doesn’t it’s not obvious that it will raise crime, and the size of neighborhoods to patrol, by 1% such that 1% more police officers will be required.
Bigger is bigger, even if you have an excuse for it. But you generally don’t have a (good) excuse for it. Pretending that bigger is actually smaller because it didn’t scale 1:1 to other things is a con job.
Mr Knapp – you are correct and I am mistaken about the time (I have just looked up at the clock and I will have to be out of the house and down to London soon).
On the other hand you are totally wrong about (for example) Calvin Coolidge not reducing the size of the American government.
What matters is the size of economy as a proportion of the economy – which is why Herbert Hoover actually INCREASED the size of government much more than is normally thought (if one looks at how much more of the economy was taken by the Federal government in 1932-1933 than it had been in 1928-1929).
Indeed according to you Mr Knapp, Herbert Hoover cut taxes – after all he was getting less Dollars in 1932 than Calvin Coolidge had done in 1928. The people who faced far higher tax rates under President Herbert “The Forgotten Progressive” Hoover would not have agreed with you.
Of course I do not think you are sincerely making mistakes (I am a cynical person – especially about Black Flaggers), but it is possible that you are sincerely in error – thus I have spent time (too much time actually) trying to help.
I think that we can both agree that reducing the size of the Kansas State Arts Commission to zero (by abolishing it) was a good thing.
“I think that we can both agree that reducing the size of the Kansas State Arts Commission to zero (by abolishing it) was a good thing.”
Absolutely. There shouldn’t be a state, and if there is a state we should resist any involvement of that state in the arts, whether it’s to support them (which in truth means to push them in the direction desired by the political class) or to suppress them.
I’m all for separation of state and EVERYTHING.
My own view for what it’s worth is that if anyone genuniely cuts government significantly, the metric won’t matter very much because it will be obvious. If the cut depends on the metric, it is probably to trivial to argue about.
That’s a reasonable supposition, IanB.
In the US, at least, there’s a whole lot of sleight of hand over what it even means to “cut.”
For example, in the recent dust-up over military spending, the Republican members of Congress called for, IIRC, an 18% increase over five years while the Obama administration called for an increase of 10% over five years. The Republicans characterized the administration’s position as “draconian cuts to defense spending.”
On the other hand, the Democrats called Paul Ryan’s long-term budget proposal for “draconian” spending cuts. The “cuts” they referred to were that he proposed to continue increasing spending and deficits for the several years, then start drawing down the deficits (while still increasing spending, just not as much as projected GDP growth/tax revenues would increase) and balance the budget after a few more years. So more spending every year, just not quite as MUCH more, and a much larger budget at the end. “DRACONIAN CUTS!”
You may remember that back in the 1990s, there was something of a dramatic rollout of a “balanced budget.” It all sounded very nice, until you noticed that spending continued to outpace revenue and that the government’s debt continued to grow. Yeah, they passed a piece of paper marked “budget” in which the numbers written down for “expenditures” balanced with the numbers written down for “revenues.” It’s just that they kept quite a few expenditures “off-budget,” and passed quite a few more “expenditures” as “emergency supplementals” after the budget itself. So “balance budget” meant nothing of the kind.
It’s much the same here, Thomas. “Cuts” are defined as anything less than some other higher hypothetical figure, so if the government raises spending by 12%, but the other party would have raised it by 15%, that’s a “cut”. The other one is if there is an attempt to remove a subsidy, that gets called a “tax”. It’s all the same thing, shifting the baseline figure, effectively.
These days I am less interested I think in the money than in the “scope” of the State anyway. Not so much about how much they spend, but the breadth of what they do. So for me, a “cut” would be the State withdrawing from some area of life, which very rarely happens. Arguably, one of the few examples is the ending of persecution of gays, though even there the State is still heavily involved in gay issues- just in a positive rather than negative manner- rather than withdrawing from that area.
In the EU, there is a principle called the acquis communitaire. This is a principle that once the EU has acquired a “competence” from a member state, it must never be returned to the member state, so it is a one way ratchet. In the USA, this would be the equivalent of the federal government taking a power from a state government. I think there is a general principle of governments though which is much the same and I think of as “acquis governmentaire”; the idea that once the State has taken a “competence” from the citizens, it never hands it back to us. Reversing this ratchet is of more interest to me than spending issues at the moment. Not least because a government can expand its scope while not necessarily expanding- or even contracting- its spending.
For instance over the past decades, our government has implemented a huge regime of financial interference under the rubric of “preventing money laundering” (which Sean mentioned above in his speech). The costs of this seem to fall mostly on businesses, not on the State. Likewise, we labour under a huge, sinister media control Quango called “OFCOM” who have power over all of our media, and increasingly over the internet too. They likewise are mostly funded by levies on industry which are not technically part of the government’s accounts.
Yeah, the ratchet effect is hard at work here too.
A lot of people think the Republicans are going to repeal “ObamaCare,” but it will never happen. For one thing, its central component, the “individual mandate,” was a Republican idea in the first place (proposed by Nixon in 1973, proposed by Gingrich in 1993 and implemented by Romney in Massachusetts in 2007).
Even if the Republicans win the White House and keep their Senate majority in 2016 (unlikely), the most they’ll end up doing is tinkering with it.
And by the next time the Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress (probably the early 2020s), they’ll have had several years to promote “fixing” it by turning into a complete “single-payer” system. Which, as you’ve learned across the pond, is damn near impossible to get out of once you’re in it. It will almost certainly last until complete regime collapse.
I refer to those “the nasty party will repeal X” hopes/fears as Amersham Policies. An Amersham, according to the humourous dictionary “The Meaning Of Liff” is a sneeze which tickles but never arrives.
Government cuts in general are amersham policies. 🙂
The position of measuring things in raw Dollars – it would mean that (for example) Calvin Coolidge increased taxes (because he got more revenue) and that Herbert Hoover cut taxes (because he got less revenue). The truth is the exact reverse – Calvin Coolidge cut taxes (both tax rates and as a proportion of the economy) and Herbert Hoover increased taxes (both tax rates and as a proportion of the economy).
Exactly the same thing is true of government spending – what matters is what proportion of the economy it takes.
It is true that Progressive Republicans have long favoured the individual mandate (sometimes known now as the “Swiss system”) – Richard Nixon did not invent it, he had a picture of T. Roosevelt on his wall as a child (those who were shocked by Nixon’s “move to the left” had not bothered to study his life, he always admired the Progressives his only problem with them was that they would not pay his living costs to go to Harvard, even though he got higher school test schools that the rich kids did, and then sneered at him for the rest of his life [or at least he thought they were sneering at him] for not going to Harvard).
“Teddy” Roosevelt did not invent it either – he got it from Otto Von Bismark (who looked back to German thinkers as far back as the 1700s). Of course T. Roosevelt ended up creating his own party but some supporters of his remained in the Republican Party (for example Herbert “The Forgotten Progressive” Hoover had been a T. Roosevelt supported and did not change his “anti reactionary” opinions – although he were on the conservative lecture circuit after he left office).
In the defence of people like “Mitt” Romney he faced a situation where “free” health care was already the law – just turn up to a hospital with an ER and demand “emergency” treatment and (by a demented law passes in the 1980s – after a media propaganda campaign including various lies about women being thrown out of hospital in the middle of childbirth) and they can not turn you away.
“If they can just turn up and demand treatment – we had better make paying in advance compulsory” was the Romney line – thus missing the point that the correct solution was to REPEAL the Federal statute.
Also (as Romney pointes out – endlessly) his “individual mandate” was not deliberately designed to increase the cost of an individual buying healthcare cover, the Obama “individual mandate” is DELIBRRATLY DESIGNED to increase the cost of an individual buying health cover (to push more and more people into the having the government pay for them).
Personally I am NOT impressed by the Romney defence (although it is technically true) – as whether something is deliberately designed to increase government paying (as Obamacare is – see the tapes of key speeches that were leaked and played by many anti Obama types) or not, the EFFECT will be to increase costs (regardless of the intention).
Short version – Obama wants X to happen, Romney (quite truthfully – he would pass a polygraph test and so on.) says he does not want X to happen, but the effect of their intervention is to make X happen – so there be the problem.
In reality the Romney defence (of Progressive Republicans) is as follows………
“They (the Red Flag Obama types) are doing this on purpose (see these recorded comments about how they want the government to take over paying and how Obamacare is designed to increase costs and more and more people depend on the government) whereas we are just MORONS we are not doing this on purpose, so vote for the moron not the bad person”.
Even I have to admit that “vote for me – I am not doing this on purpose, I am just a moron” is not a great message. Even if the computer system in the Romney campaign had actually worked on election day (it did not – and it was a not Democrat plot, the Romney people had not properly tested their system, they just assumed that GOOD INTENTIONS would make everything work, a bit like “Romneycare”) .
As for government programs generally – are they “immortal”?
As Ronald Reagan said in his 1964 speech a government scheme, once established, is the nearest thing to immortality that exists in this world.
However that is a council of despair (it was not when Reagan made the speech – as he was opposing the creation of the Great Society entitlement programs, but it becomes a council of despair when the programs are established) – it leads to the Arthur L. position that all one can do is CUT TAXES and hope that economic growth will pay for all these government programs that are de facto “immortal”.
That will not work – it just will not work.
Spending programs have to be hit – a lot of things just can not be afforded in the long term. Therefore any candidate must be asked how he will make his savings – whether he has done so in the past (as a State Governor) or produced a legislative plan to do so (as a Congressman or a Senator).
If the only reply one gets is “I will cut waste and corruption” then run away screaming.
However, if one is serious about getting a grip on government spending – get ready for the protests, and the death threats, and the checking for bombs under the car (after all anyone who is serious about government spending is a “racist” and a “sexist” and someone who is a “servant of the corporations” [it used to be “slave of the Jews”] who wants to “grind the faces of the poor”), but going into politics is not compulsory – and if you can not take the death threats (and so on) then go do something else.
Republicans have ended government programs in the past (for example New Deal Food Stamps and many other things were ended by the Republican Congress elected in 1946, it all came back, and far worse, In the 1960s) and they will have to do so again – in 2017 (when Obama is no longer there with his veto pen).
The sums just do not add up (especially for the Entitlement Programs) so urgent action will have to be taken – by “President Rand Paul” or someone else (but it will have to be done – it is necessary).
There I think we would all agree.
One thing that will amuse Thomas is that the insurance companies and drug companies are starting (too late) to work out that Obamacare will not benefit them – rather the reverse.
They were told it would benefit then (“think of all the compulsory customers you will have!”), but now the details are starting to come out (bit by bitt) it is clear that they (the companies) are going to be hit – and more and more hit as time goes on.
I have no sympathy what-so-ever – if the executives of the companies involved had done basic background research on the people they were dealing with (from Obama on down) they would have understood that they were passionate haters of “big business” and that their promises would all turn out to be lies.
If managers can not be bothered to do background research (or, worse, think they can manipulate “college leftists” so that it does not matter that the people they are dealing with are Reds) then they deserve all they get. It is a pity about the shareholders of course – but repeated government interventions (both in regulations and in taxation) have weakened the control of OWNERS over MANAGERS.
This is the basic difference between the modern Anglo-American situation and the traditional one – not the existence of bodies corporate, or even things like limited liability agreements (that goes back to private Law Merchant and to Church Canon Law as long ago as the Middle Ages – Church law was often used in commercial matters). The real difference now is the weakening (the undermining) of the control of owners over managers.
In Britain only a small minority of shares are now owned by individuals (such things as Capital Gains tax and Inheritance Tax have seen to that), and the “deregulation” of the “Big Bang” was actually a massive increase in government regulation (basically the old “City” was destroyed by it – the old “City” was controlled by the rules of private companies and clubs, these were denounced by the state as “restrictive practise” – and the tidal wave of government regulation [thousands of pages of it] came in instead). The new “improved” (government controlled) City of London is no place for private investors (certainly not “Aunt Agatha” – i.e someone with modest means).
Basically financial services in London (including the stock market) are now like New York.
The United Kingdom had the industrial revolution (and so on) without the “need” for government control of financial services – no one (for example) was forced to use the so called “medieval guild dominated” London Stock Exchange – there were other exchanges (such as the Liverpool Exchange) and trading “off exchange” was perfectly legal anyway.
But “no” this was not good enough – the government “had to” take over, in order to crush “restrictive practices” (which, somehow, had not stopped the industrial revolution or the development of the City of London as the most trusted financial centre in the history of the human species) .
Now everything before the “Big Bang” has gone down the “Memory Hole” – hardly anyone remembers a time when the stock exchange (and so on) was not dominated by government regulations.
Explain how things worked in (say) 1985 (just before the courts and their “anti restrictive practices” rulings) and people think you are talking libertarian science fiction.
Ditto if you tell me that (as late as 1965 – mid 60s introduction of Capital Gains Tax) most shares were still owned by individuals.
Government spending in Britain? The proportion of the economy it takes declined between the 1983 and 1987 elections (indeed till about 1989). With the fall of Mrs Thatcher the government has taken up more and more of the economy).
However, Mrs Thatcher’s record from 1979 to 1982 was awful – basically most of the out Labour government’s promises were carried out (as if a new Parliament could not overturn the laws of the old Parliament – which it can).
The media called any failure to honour any Labour government promise (no matter how insane) a “cut” – even though the money was new money (promise pay rises and so on) the Labour government had not been paying all this in 1978, they just promised XYZ and (insanely) the new government went along with it (well X and Y – Z was the “cuts” and got the screams, the riots and so on).
I remember asking at the time “if the Labour government had promised everyone gold plated toilets would you go along with it?”
The reply the young (slim and with a full head of hair) Paul Marks got was basically “only if the legislation had already been passed”.
It was difficult not to give up at that point.
Ironically the last time government spending in Britain was “cut” in the Thomas sense was in 1976-1977. (the Labour government had quietly gone bankrupt [so much for it being impossible for a government to go bankrupt] – and the condition for the IMF emergency loan was a cut in government spending).
Although if one is talking about raw Pounds then I am not sure Thomas would count it as a “cut”.
One (if sane) does not just compare to piles of Pound notes – one checks both after inflation spending (as well as proportion of the economy spending).
After inflation is taken account of 1976-7 was a big cut. (not just as a proportion of the economy – but in terms of what government departments could provide).
It is a wonder how bankruptcy “concentrates the mind”.
I can see a partial case for evaluating government size and spending trends over time in light of monetary inflation — but only a partial case, given that government itself is a major driver of inflation via fiat currency and government debt.
But evaluating it “as a percentage of GDP” is a complete dodge, because few, if any, government activities scale reasonably at anything like 1:1 to GDP.
Let’s take Kansas as the continuing example:
If GDP doubles, does that mean the state government of Kansas needs to get to work doubling the number of linear miles of road? No. It may construct SOME new roads, or add lanes to existing roads in congested areas, and it may cost more to maintain the existing roads, but no, road needs are not going to double.
If GDP doubles, does that mean the state government of Kansas needs to double the head count of the Kansas Highway Patrol? No. They won’t need twice as many troopers on the highways. They won’t need twice as many dispatchers. They may need SOME more people in SOME areas of operation, but they won’t need twice as many of almost anything.
If GDP doubles, does that mean the state government of Kansas needs to double its agriculture department? Um, no — even if an acre of farm land gets more productive, there are still a certain number of acres in Kansas and that number is the same as it was before GDP doubled.
Look at it on a national scale: There is no reason whatsoever that “defense” spending or “border security” spending has to double just because GDP doubles. The globe remains the same size and the borders remain the same length.
And if GDP is growing faster than population, spending on “welfare state” stuff should go DOWN, not up, as a percentage of GDP, because in a period of economic growth a smaller, not larger, percentage of the population should be unemployed.
That whole kind of dodge is part of what drove me to libertarianism. In the early 1990s I considered myself a “conservative.” Then there was the mid-1990s “government shutdown” over Medicare, where President Clinton wanted to increase Medicare spending by 5.5 percent, while the Republican Congress only wanted to increase it by 5.3 percent and make up the other 0.2 percent by raising Medicare users’ monthly premiums by a dollar or two. But to hear both sides talk to their ideological brethren, you’d have thought Republicans were actually talking about cutting something (the Republicans talked it up because they thought that was what their voters wanted to hear; the Democrats trotted out their “DRACONIAN CUTS TO MEDICARE” screeches because they thought their audience would respond the opposite way).
My very own “conservative” congressman talked up “cutting all this wasteful Medicare spending” at a conservative breakfast in the morning, then at his noon press conference assured the more “moderate” public that OF COURSE they weren’t talking about actually cutting Medicare, just arguing about the amount they planned to increase it.
It wasn’t long after that that I finally and forever gave up on “conservativism.”
Thomas I have not used the term “GDP” – use any measure of the economy you like, but if you are not talking about government spending (or taxation) as a proportion of the economy then you are just messing about.
As for the wild swings of the money supply (up and down) – that can be dealt with commodity money (whether it is gold or silver does not matter to me – let people choose what commodity money they want to use), no “standard” – one hundred ounces of X commodity is one hundred ounces, not the “basis” for one thousand, or one million ounces.
“You are agreeing with Rothbard”
On economics (on virtually nothing else) I normally do. But then Rothbard did not hate all large trading enterprises – or all small “corporations” either.
Ian is correct – the hatred of “corporations” is a weirdly American thing (a hatred found almost nowhere else).
This may explain why the United States (and States such as California) have some of the worst (highest) company taxation and worst company regulation in the Western World.
But should the American economy become dominated by large enterprises with single owners or partnerships (or whatever) rather than companies – I do not believe that either the Red Flaggers or the Black Flaggers will like it any better.