Unrest in Israel

An Israeli friend recently pointed out that the middle class unrest in Israel was a dangerous development with potentially disrupting consequences for that fledgling democracy.  He gave several reasons which did not comport with those in this analysis by Ran Baratz.  If one believes the Baratz analysis the problem is the incomplete transition from a socialist state to a free market economy begun a decade or so ago by Netanyahu when he was the Finance Director in Stone's cabinet.  Among the reasons for the unrest given by the Israeli friend was the polarization of wealth into the hands of a few families and the fact that costs of housing was almost prohibitively high.

The NYTimes's problem with the truth

Why anyone with any concern for truthful reporting reads the NYTimes has to be one of the big mysteries of our times.  BI (before the internet) the Times could ge away with this kind of story and did frequently.  But it's a different world when a scrupulous and diligent lawyer like John Hinderacker gets ahold of a Times story and deconstructs the narrative; for this fact we can thank the emergence of the Internet.   Since Daryl Issa, Republican congressman from San Diego, became the chairman of the House Oversight Committee and has been looking into the various misdemeanors of the Democrat Administration, the pit bull arm of the Party, namely the Times and all the far left internet sites that feed the Times their story lines, have been out digging up "stuff" to discredit him.  It is instructive to read here how the Times and its minions go about this nefarious and sladerous work, which they do over and over on a regular basis to anyone who threatens the Democrat Party's leadership and moral authority.  This is truly a sordid story but one that reveals how low both the Times and the Democrat Party have sunk.

Liberal professor identifies the problem

Anyone who doesn't understand how we have arrived at the state we are in and why we have the political leadership we now have, has only to read this mea culpa of a liberal psychology professor from Emory University.  This garden variety liberal lays all the blame for our current "predicament" on all the usual left wing demons: Wall Street, greed, lack of regulations, tax breaks for the wealthy, Republicans.   And yet, in retrospect, the professor now realizes that Obama had a resume that didn't demonstrate many leadership qualities.   But nowhere in this rant does the professor explain the world view that led him and his friends to elect Barack Obama in the first place.  Had he been minimally introspective,  he just might have questioned why he and his friends bought into the hopey-dopey mantra of an obvious (at least to many of us) fraud in the first place.  Had he done so it might have come down to this:  The professor and his like-minded friends have a view of human nature that doesn't comport with reality.  They are looking for the chimera of the perfectibility of man.  All it takes in this world is the single perfect leader who understands -- like they do -- how to correct the flaws in the system and human nature, that once corrected will result in the perfect society.  The vague, unspecific and dreamy solutions of a messiah -- The One -- were enough for these dreamers to elect an Obama.  Herein lies the reason dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Jong II, rise to power.  They are enabled by dreamers looking for the perfect world.

ADDED:  This article catalogues the case for arguing Obama is an out and out Marxist who is carefully orchestrating the demise of the US in order to create a new world order out of the rubble.  It often seems that what he does is so demonstrably counterproductive that there must be some nefarious reason for it.  If one thinks about the Obama constituencies in the context of some nefarious master plan, that plan becomes a plausibility.  O's primary constituency is the SEIU and sister unions (AFL-CIO, et al) and the blacks.  Does anyone doubt that this constituency would not prefer a reordering of society in which what the rich and productive people have is spread among them?

FDR's depression

Most people are not aware that the Great Depression started with the stock market collapse in 1929, shortly after Herbert Hoover was elected president.  Hoover, a technocrat/businessman, began a series of make work and other government spending programs that FDR expanded upon once he became president in 1933.  Many of the New Deal programs were simply variations and amplifications of the Hoover Administration's attempt to create jobs with government projects and planning.  Walter Williams, a conservative economist, talks about the evolution and failure of some of these programs in this column here.  It's worth noting that there was at least as much unemployment, north of 20%, in 1939/40 as in 1931/33 long after the programs of Hoover and FDR were put into play.  Clearly they had no impact on the unemployment rate.  So why are so many keen on the leadership of FDR during this period?  Maybe because he introduced many programs that have come to be known as the social safety net the runaway costs of which have now driven us into bankruptcy.  Those who believe in a government directed economy that delivers the fruits of everyone's labors evenly are always keen on more and more government programs and regulations to effect this end.  Hoover and FDR started the ball rolling and their big government followers remain grateful to these two.