"The economy can’t be played like a piano — press a fiscal key here and the right job creation notes come out over there. Instead, economic management is more like parenting. If you instill good values and create a secure climate then, through some mysterious process you will never understand, things will probably end well."
Like my dad always says (and I paraphrase), the government can't do all much to help an economy in recession, but it can do plenty to fuck it up further.
The other piece is about the track record of progressives against progress. Notice how progress routinely involves a large government body, sometimes international, restricting the freedom of the middle class to protect the interests of the upper class, all under the guise of altruistic intentions. Quick summary: In the 70's, there was the population bomb, where the only solution to save the planet and the people on it was sterilization and the banning of family photos in the media. In the 80's, there was nuclear winter, which required unilateral nuclear disarmament and an international governing body to watch over the remaining nukes. Then there was global warming, which of course, could be solved by a ban of jet-travel and economic stagnation. That's an over-simplification, so read the damn article yourselves, it's excellent. Money quotes in no particular order:
"In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen."
"Where American consumers had once felt confidence in food and drug laws that protected them from dirt and germs, a series of food scares involving additives made many view science, not nature, as the real threat to public health. Similarly, the sensational impact of the feminist book Our Bodies, Ourselves—which depicted doctors as a danger to women’s well-being, while arguing, without qualifications, for natural childbirth—obscured the extraordinary safety gains that had made death during childbirth a rarity in developed nations."
"As such proposals indicate, American liberalism has remarkably come to resemble nineteenth-century British Tory Radicalism, an aristocratic sensibility that combined strong support for centralized monarchical power with a paternalistic concern for the poor. Its enemies were the middle classes and the aesthetic ugliness it associated with an industrial economy powered by bourgeois energies."
"Like the Tory Radicals, today’s liberal gentry see the untamed middle classes as the true enemy. “Environmentalism offered the extraordinary opportunity to combine the qualities of virtue and selfishness,” wrote William Tucker in a groundbreaking 1977 Harper’s article on the opposition to construction of the Storm King power plant along New York’s Hudson River. Tucker described the extraordinary sight of a fleet of yachts—including one piloted by the old Stalinist singer Pete Seeger—sailing up and down the Hudson in protest. What Tucker tellingly described as the environmentalists’ “aristocratic” vision called for a stratified, terraced society in which the knowing ones would order society for the rest of us. "
"True to its late-1960s origins, political environmentalism in America gravitates toward both bureaucrats and hippies: toward a global, big-brother government that will keep the middle classes in line andtoward a back-to-the-earth, peasantlike localism, imposed on others but presenting no threat to the elites’ comfortable lives. How ironic that these gentry liberals—progressives against progress—turn out to resemble nothing so much as nineteenth-century conservatives."
Read the whole thing and have a nice weekend.
Viking; I'd like to say a couple things. First, not really fair to compare the US to Germany IMHO. Germany benefited from the huge capital inflows from the other European countries as a safe haven. In addition to that, all of Europe benefitted from the US hitting the fiscal gas pedal to save the banking system. If you doubt that logic, why did the ECB require the Fed to set up foreign exchange swaps? As to your Dad's comment, he's right in this environment due to the ineptitude of the current administration. However there is a lot the government can do to help an economy in recession. I could list examples but I believe that's beyond the scope of your blog. Volcker and Greenspan got things right most of the time.
Posted by: cf | 08/29/2010 at 04:19 PM
cf - To quote the President, "This is above my pay-grade." Actually, instead of that cop out, I'll just admit that I'm no economist and the article sounded reasonable to me. So thank you for the perspective, your point is well taken :).
Posted by: The Viking | 08/29/2010 at 05:38 PM