Völkischer Beobachter as People’s Choice
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March 2, 2005
Billmon: 03/02
Comments
Excellent combination Billmon. It really builds up for the pofff.
Roach deconstructed the Greenspan memorial in Foreign Policy. The worst Central Banker ever as others have said. I hope the coming backslash from the desaster his policy creates will bring some saner societies.
Billmon must have sold his house recently to beat the bursting bubble, quit his day job, and has rediscovered his true calling.
Posted by: biklett | Mar 2 2005 21:17 utc | 4
For example, future Congresses and Presidents will, over time, have to weigh the benefits of continued access, on current terms, to advances in medical technology against other spending priorities as well as against tax initiatives that foster increases in economic growth and the revenue base.
Such ugly class resentment.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 3 2005 1:03 utc | 5
Greenspeak is at it again. This fellow resents the middle and lower calsses and like a good fed chairman, he protects capital. Volcker should have been prosecuted for his part in the depression of 1979-1982. They protected capital and f—ed the little guy.
Greenspeak is the same asshole who helped steal my SS money and encourages tax cuts for the rich, so that money is stolen and spent for current spending. Now, Greenspeak and Bushie want to default on that money owed to hard working americans that paid all these years.
This is a sure f— the little guy scheme.
Posted by: jdp | Mar 3 2005 1:12 utc | 6
As the swedish riksbank handed out last years price in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel (known as the Nobel-prize in economics, but not a original Nobel-prize) to some chaps who had proved that independent national bank was the best I thought: “If and when the dollars collapses and Greenspan is caught in the mess, will then this love affair with having officials that can´t be fired were of?”
One can dream that people will draw the right conclusions right?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Mar 3 2005 2:29 utc | 7
What did Hunter S. Thompson call HHH in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail? A “shallow, contemptible old hack”, wasn’t it? Does that ever fit Greenspan now; nothing but a hack. Was he ever anything more?
Posted by: Alvin | Mar 3 2005 3:17 utc | 8
Gonzo Gone, Rather Going, Watergate Still Here – Frank Rich on Thompsen, gleichschaltung, todays media and Gannongate:
Thompson was out to break the mainstream media’s rules. His unruly mix of fact, opinion and masturbatory self-regard may have made him a blogger before there was an Internet, but he was a blogger who had the zeal to leave home and report firsthand and who could write great sentences that made you want to savor what he found out rather than just scroll quickly through screen after screen of minutiae and rant.
…
But even Thompson might have been shocked by what’s going on now. “The death of Thompson represents the passing from the Age of Gonzo to the Age of Gannon,” wrote Russell Cobb in a column in The Daily Texan at the University of Texas. As he argues, today’s White House press corps is less likely to be invaded by maverick talents like a drug-addled reporter from a renegade start-up magazine than by a paid propagandist like Jeff Gannon, a fake reporter for a fake news organization (Talon News) run by a bona fide Texas Republican operative who was a delegate to the 2000 Bush convention.
…
..even as Mr. Gannon has quit his “job” as a reporter and his “news organization” has closed up shop, the plot thickens. His own Web site – which only recently shut down with the self-martyring message “The voice goes silent” – has now restarted as a blog with Gonzo pretensions. The title alone of his first entry, “Fear and Loathing in the Press Room,” would send Thompson spinning in his grave had he not asked that his remains be shot out of a cannon.
…
“Reporting America’s Story,” NBC’s slogan, is what Hunter Thompson actually did before the phrase was downsized into a vacuous marketing strategy. As for Mr. Rather, he gave a valedictory interview to Ken Auletta of The New Yorker in which he said, “The one thing I hope, and I believe, is that even my enemies think that I am authentic.” The bar is so low these days that authenticity may well constitute a major journalistic accomplishment in itself.
Another at-bat, this time on tax-reform:
As you know, many economists believe that a consumption tax would be best from the perspective of promoting economic growth–particularly if one were designing a tax system from scratch–because a consumption tax is likely to encourage saving and capital formation.
“Consumption taxation” is regressive. I think, among economists, this is uncontroversial.
Add in bankruptsy “reform” debated yesterday in the Senate, the class warriors have had a busy week.
Posted by: slothrop | Mar 3 2005 16:05 utc | 10
Greenspan finally declares class war openly on the nation’s workers. The only justification for raising taxes on labor and then cutting benefits owed them while preserving tax cuts on capital is an interest in promoting capital over labor. Even Lincoln is turning in his grave over this corruption of his party, since he knew deep in his soul that labor was owed pride of place in society’s division of outcomes. Greenspan has been well and truly bought.
Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Mar 3 2005 17:00 utc | 11
Slothrop: I’m no economist, but unless proven wrong, I’ll stick to my opinion that the abysmal grwoth of domestic consumption in EU is mostly due to the VAT (15+% on average). From a purely environmental point of view (green basically), it isn’t a bad thing since it limits the wasteful tendencies of Westerners, but it’s clearly bad for economic growth which is consumption-related – 65-70% of the whole economy being domestic in US and EU, a bit more in EU than in US if I remember the figures. And socially speaking, it’s completely unfair; it’s basically close to a flat tax on income in the way it affects people, and comes close to the foolish systems where everyone was taxed the same amount.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 3 2005 17:33 utc | 12
Looks like every month, this silly PC decides to forget me…
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Mar 3 2005 17:33 utc | 13
The only justification … is an interest in promoting capital over labor
Reminds me of some old Hollywood/James Bond movie that I saw on the telly, where Bond asks the nuke-touting Arab something about his motives, and the baddy rejoins with “.. and what do you believe in? The preservation of capital?”
It seems to me that the preservation of capital over labor is the fundamental principal of all current-day economics. Even down to the mundane micro-management of the “underlying structural unemployment rate” (meaning that the goal of all good fiscal policy is to keep the unemployment rate at 5% – not much below this mark).
The preservation of capital is the only game in town, and I am surprised that anyone is surprised by this.
Posted by: DM | Mar 3 2005 17:48 utc | 14
Clueless Joe: it’s actually worse than a flat tax: it affects the poor more than the rich, since the rich do not spend most of their income on Vatable products or services. It’s also very expensive for businesses to collect: you’d be horrified how much time it takes for me to deal with VAT, and we don’t have many transactions.
(I assume here you mean flat tax rate since you refer to the other system later.)
There’s that scene from “Cabaret” where all the good folk are sitting in the restaurant debating the “truth” about the Jews. I’ve wandered into scenes like that in real life from time to time myself and the only difference between now and then is now there’s usually a tv set turned to Fox News somewhere in the room. . .
Posted by: bcf | Mar 3 2005 18:59 utc | 16
OK, I desperately needed some comedy relief and here it is — Rapture takes the Left!
The Dredge learned that former General Rios Montt of Guatemala, a born again Christian, has suggested that the Rapture has already taken place, as expected. But he does not understand why leftists were the ones snatched by God to go to Heaven. Similar rumors have spread throughout the Southernest Baptist Convention but fundamentalist leaders are saying that it could not be true. A spokesman from Lynchburg, Virginia who wanted to remain anonymous charged that “this is a rapture alright, it is the devil’s rapture trying to confuse God fearing Americans.” He stressed that liberal wire services were collaborating with Lucifer.
[invitation: read the whole thing, it’s pretty good]
@ DeAnander: I’ve had that “what if…” notion occasionally. According to what I remember from Sunday school, it makes perfect sense.
Posted by: beq | Mar 3 2005 20:22 utc | 18