by Scot Mussi | Dec 1, 2011 | News and Updates, Uncategorized
I watch MSNBC. I watch Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Matthews, the Ed Show – yes, I watched Olbermann when he was on MSNBC. Don’t really know why, but I suppose it has more to do with a desire to see if the Left’s best and brightest can strike a chord with swing voters, and make me think . . . “yeah, how should conservatives respond to that?” But there is an entertainment value to these shows, as well. O’Donnell’s dramatic cadence, Maddow’s often convoluted and lengthy conspiracies, Ed’s “man of the people” shtick, Matthews’ . . . well that’s tough to narrow down. That guy is pure entertainment.
Nevertheless, adding to the entertainment value of the shows’ hosts are the commercials featuring the hosts. You’ve seen them; they are the Lean Forward commercials. They’re great. The network has an entire campaign around it, and Fox and CNN have their own ads that mock the Lean Forward tagline (Fox: We don’t lean, we move).
The content of the Lean Forward ads make for good fun and easy targets.
Maddow: “We have pursued economic policies now, for a generation, that ONLY benefit the richest people in the country.” (Her emphasis.)
Her definition of “generation” is different than mine. President George W. Bush reduced taxes for lower and middle income workers in 2001. He created a 10% tax bracket, increased the per-child tax credit to $1,000 (and made it refundable), and mailed rebate checks to every taxpayer in America. Although these policies didn’t have much impact on the economy, no one can argue that Bush didn’t reduce taxes for the middle class.
What makes this Maddow commercial worse is another Maddow commercial where she says, “Doing [news] right takes rigor, and a devotion to facts that borders on obsessive.”
by Scot Mussi | Nov 2, 2011 | News and Updates, Uncategorized
In another sign that voters are becoming tougher critics on proposals to raise taxes, voters in Colorado overwhelmingly rejected an income and sales tax increase designed to direct additional money to public education.
The proposal would have raised the state’s flat tax about 8 percent (from 4.63% to 5%). The sales and use tax increase would have moved from 2.9 percent to 3 percent.
The measure lost 64% – 36%. Democrats in Washington, DC should take notice.
by Scot Mussi | Sep 14, 2011 | News and Updates, Uncategorized
Can’t someone on the “This Week” roundtable bring this up?
The Krugman Fallacy
Posted on September 14, 2011 4:08 PM
Stan, I’m afraid you’re heading down a blind alley. You cannot hold pre-NYT Economist Paul Krugman up to the current version. You’ll just go mad. Sallie James pointed out the problem with Columnist Paul Krugman, when it comes to the concept of competitveness.
But my favorite example was well chronicled by our friend James Taranto last year. When Sen. Jim Bunning held up an extension of unemployment benefits, Krugman lamented “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”
Take the question of helping the unemployed in the middle of a deep slump. What Democrats believe is what textbook economics says: that when the economy is deeply depressed, extending unemployment benefits not only helps those in need, it also reduces unemployment. …
But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”
Krugman added, “To me, that’s a bizarre point of view — but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe. And the difference between the two universes isn’t just intellectual, it’s also moral.”
Intrigued, Taranto went out to investigate what “textbook economics” says on the matter. He went to, of all places, Paul Krugman’s textbook (co-written with Robin Wells, AKA Mrs. Krugman) Macroeconomics. It says:
Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.
Now Krugman’s extended moralizing about helping the unemployed is not invalidated by his hypocrisy, but his pose of astonishment that anyone could agree with what his own textbook says is hard to square with claims of consistency or good faith.
by Scot Mussi | Sep 12, 2011 | News and Updates, Uncategorized
Once in a while, seemingly when I need it most, I can’t remember the list of President Obama’s “big ticket” policy enactments. Thankfully, Michael Boskin listed them in a column in the Wall Street Journal on September 8, 2011:
- $825 billion stimulus package
- Public-Private Investment Partnership to buy toxic assets from the banks
- “Cash for Clunkers”
- Home-buyers credit
- Auto bailouts
- Five versions of foreclosure relief
- Numerous lifelines to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
- Frank-Dodd
- Healthcare reform (Obamacare)
- Energy subsidies
Boskin points out that the stimulus bill cost $280,000 per job – by the administration’s estimates of jobs “created or saved,” and much more using more realistic estimates.
Results:
- Fraction of the population working is the lowest since 1983 (58.1%)
- Long-term unemployment is by far the highest since the Great Depression (45.9%)
- Job growth during the first two years of recovery after a severe recession is the slowest in postwar history (.5%)
- Home-ownership rate is the lowest since 1965 and foreclosures are at a post-Depression high (59.7%)
- Share of Americans paying income taxes is the lowest in the modern era (49%)
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