No Debate

A friend attempted to "pick apart" a wonderful column by David Warren that I posted on Facebook. Instead, he revealed his own ignorance and puerility.

I refuse to debate those whose sweeping pronouncements, because they are based on their poor understanding of the current crisis, are akin to neolithic cavemen deifying flashes of lightning.

Demagoguery At Its Finest

Sanity may yet win the day, but it won't be because of men like Robert Kuttner, whose American Prospect piece today--"Paulson's Folly"--studiously exploits ignorance about the sources of the current financial crisis to mischaracterize Paulson's bailout plan and encourage false stereotypes of Republicans and Democrats.

Read it all, though for anyone well-versed in the situation it is akin to sitting through an hour of Keith Olbermann on a stomach full of bad seafood. On the other hand, it's always amusing when people who pretend to be serious commentators still see Democrats as Crusaders for the Little Guy (TM), Who Don't Know Much, But Know Somethin' 'Bout Common Dencency Dagnabbit, as opposed to the Republicans with ten gallon hats, nefarious-looking moustaches, and wives wearing fur coats and using their cigarette holders to direct their beaten-down, minority servants.

It would be a terrible shame if the current crisis were to redound to the political advantage of the congressional Democrats who helped begin it by pushing the race-baiting policies (i.e. those against alleged "redlining") and passing the absurd and panicked post-Enron regulations (i.e. the mark-to-market accounting rules included in Sarbanes-Oxley) that contributed to this mess. And I haven't even mentioned their babies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose shady activities ultimately began this crisis and somehow went under the radar while Fannie and Freddie contributed a bunch of money to none other than Democratic senators Chris Dodd and Barack Obama. (There were others, but these two are the biggest recipients.) Efforts to reform these corporations, undertaken by John McCain, George Bush and others to prevent a crisis predicted well in advance by Alan Greenspan, were blocked by...hmm, guess whom?

But that truth might be too inconvenient for Robert Kuttner and the liberal establishment.

Credit and the FDR Myth

I'd planned a more elaborate post regarding the powerful "FDR Myth" in American electoral politics, but alas, rude interruptions from my life as a graduate student have prevented me from doing so.  Suffice it to say that the FDR Myth--that the free market failed, Hoover's conservative policies were ineffective, and Roosevelt fixed the whole thing with government involvement--is back.  This time, McCain plays the role of the inept Iowa Republican, refusing to buck conventional (constitutional?) wisdom to fix everything, and Obama is the heroic Progressive who rides into town and restores America to the Little Guy.  Such arguments are invariably short on economic analysis, heavy on overwrought outrage about such things as an offhand comment that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.  Try these on for size:  my friend's Facebook post of an Eric Rauchway column in the American Prospect (which is, far from "stunningly good," rather stunningly ignorant of economics), and Froma Harrop on RealClearPolitics.

On the other hand, we have several columns from people who--what do you know!--actually know something about financial markets.  And they seem to think that these problems have been caused--what do you know!--by some absurd regulations panickedly passed into law after the Enron scandal and absurd regulations forced on banks by racemongers in the Nineties.  Here you go:

• Larry Kudlow, "Never Sell America Short"
• Neal Boortz, "The Rest of the Meltdown Story"
• Zachary Karabell, "Bad Accounting Rules Helped Sink AIG"

I know, guys.  Ever since the unfettered free market--*snort*, interjects Michelle Malkin--caused the Great Depression, every economic downturn, every stock market crash, every downtick in employment has, to these economic illiterates, provided a reason to return to Thirties-style socialism.  It must be disappointing that, for all the impassioned attacks against such left-wing bogeymen as "speculators," the free market isn't going to send the economy into a deregulation-induced tailspin while Republican fat cats retire to their mansions to let the exploited underclass rot in their sprawling Dubyavilles.  Maybe next time.

The imagery would be more entertaining if it weren't politically effective.