Libs disappointed with Obama

What's interesting about this this column by Robert Reich, the diminutive Big Government liberal professor, is his criticism of Obama, after first telling us about all his virtues.  He now sees The One as a vacillating, indecisive politician, whereas before he saw him as a man of great intelligence, vision and leadership.  One has to wonder where Reich was while Obama was building his resume by running away from controversial votes during his two brief gigs as an office holder, and where did he see all the signs of brilliance and vision in O's academic record (non existent), and where did he see evidence of his leadership qualities since he never held an executive position anywhere and never led anyone other than his election and reelection staffs,  cool aid drinkers all.  What we see here is the typical liberal thinking process for electing a leader.  Pick the individual most likely to appeal to all the varied collectivist constituencies of the democrat party who can also appeal to disaffected and wishy washy independents looking for change of any kind.  Unfortunately what this gets us is an unproven neuter unlikely to be anymore successful leading his party or country than he was as a lawmaker.  What liberals are really looking for is a White Knight who miraculously leads us all to Nirvana -- like, say, FDR whose policies and leadership prolonged the Great Recession by at least 8 or 9 years.  And of course for libs like Reich it also comes down to their favorite whipping boy, unequal income distribution.  This latter point because they see the economy as a zero sum game in which there is limited income available that therefore should be distributed evenly throughout the society in the interest of fairness and overall consumption.  What these dreamers fail to understand is that the driving force of a productive economy is a finite number of individuals called entrepreneurs. If these people don't have the incentives to create and build companies that satisfy consumer wants and needs, the economy does not grow and produce jobs.  Demonizing business types, over taxing producers, over protecting consumers are all disincentives that discourage entrepreneurs and stultify the economic growth.  It's not that complicated.

Chart speak for self

Now for Something Really Scary…

Click for full size. Note the gap between spending and revenue. This ship won’t be afloat for long:

Good thing the graph stops in 2010. I couldn’t bear to see what it looks like after another year of Obama.

California's budget dilemma

The State of California's controller, John Chiang, recently visited the Westlake Village area and gave a talk about the budget problems he faces and the future prospects for the state.  According to the local paper, Acorn, the controller talked about how the real estate crash of '07 caused a huge shortfall in revenues and an inability to meet the obligations of the state, predicting "It's going to be a rough couple of years", before things improve.  Chiang went on to discuss how the state's future depends on the skill set of the population (education system), financial capital and infrastructure, are the most important elements of the California economy and that all three of these components are now severely weakened by this crises.  He also talks about how Californians were living beyond their means before the crises and how the state will be in even greater trouble if commodity prices increase and consumer spending decreases.  Okay, all this analysis is interesting, at least to him, but what is the state doing to bring expenditures in line with revenues and what is it doing to address the outrageous stranglehold the public service unions exert over the economy, a condition that has been a growing issue for decades?  Not a peep!  Chiang offers no advice on getting the unions under control nor how to address the pension fund shortfall that represents a claim on taxpayers that for the present, at least, dwarfs everything else he talked about.  This City Journal piece suggests some of the issues Chiang and his cohorts should be talking about because they are immediate and if they don't get addressed there will be no money for any of the big picture issues he spent his time addressing.  What we're seeing here is a public official, in office as a choice of a governor who in turn is in office as a result of union financing and support.  Think these guys are going to get a handle on the really big problem?  It's pretty clear from Chiang's presentation they would rather talk about macro economic issues than address the union issue.

ADDED: This City Journal piece sets the record right with respect to exactly how much the 1.85 million state and local government employees are costing the rest of us.  There is no way this huge imbalance can or will continue.

Islam vs the west

This interview is essential viewing to understand where the two competing world civilizations are at present.  The two authorities here are highly regarded scholars in their firlds.

Elizabeth Drew of NYT Book Review provides the liberal view

Elizabeth Drew is obviously a garden variety liberal who shows no evidence of having read anything about past recessions and depressions and who is clearly unaware of George Santayana's classic admonition: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it".  The past was Herbert Hoover's reaction to the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 to dramatically increase taxes and create government spending programs willy nilly. Things got much worse over the next three years and in 1932 FDR ran against these profligate big spending programs, won big over the incumbent Hoover and proceeded in the next several years to double down on all Hoover's misguided tax and spending programs. Only the onset of the second world war in 1941, twelve years after the Great Depression began,  put Americans back to work thus ending the longest and deepest economic correction in our country's history.  In short the high tax big spending government programs during the '30's did little other than to prolong a recovery and make a bad economy worse.  So here we have the example of another "pundit" essentially agreeing with Obama's position on raising taxes and continuing big spending government programs that history showed us did not work.  And so it goes in liberal circles today.