"Governed by Callous Children"

[unixronin]

The WSJ has a new opinion column by Peggy Noonan, and it's worth reading.

The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter.  We should be dancing in the streets.  No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers.  Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment.  The tide will recede.  The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle.  No one believes the bad time is over.  No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance.  No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008.  Economists, statisticians, forecasters and market specialists will argue about what the new numbers mean, but no one believes them, either.  Among the things swept away in 2008 was public confidence in the experts.  The experts missed the crash.  They'll miss the meaning of this moment, too.

Noonan talks about two main issues in this column.  The first is that more and more people are tired of being told the same old "Jam tomorrow" promises, and just don't believe them any more.  In increasing numbers, the American people are realizing that there's no reason why what failed yesterday and the day before should work if tried again, unchanged, tomorrow.  People don't believe that Congress or the White House will fix the problem. They don't believe that the government knows how.  And they're right, because the government is too mired in business-as-usual to think outside the box.  No matter what promises are made in their campaigns, once they get ensconced inside the Beltway, it's the same old same old.

Noonan's other issue is another thing that an increasing number of Americans have caught on to, and that Congress hasn't.

We are governed at all levels by America's luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they're not optimists—they're unimaginative.  They don't have faith, they've just never been foreclosed on.  They are stupid and they are callous, and they don't mind it when people become disheartened.  They don't even notice.

And that's the real problem.  Capitol Hill is totally out of touch with America; and, as a general rule, Capitol Hill neither knows, nor cares.

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[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

"And that's the real problem. Capitol Hill is totally out of touch with America; and, as a general rule, Capitol Hill neither knows, nor cares."

That is it, in a nutshell.

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Maybe Americans feel all depressed now, hopeless about the near future, because they've been living beyond their means for 30 years.

American labor cannot compete with 3rd world labor, and the American technical base has at best a slim edge over other industrialized nations. Our prosperity has been built on cheap oil and cheap credit.

People "on the ground" who are "misty-eyed" about the country were delusional to begin with about exactly how competitive they are.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

yup. and they're too stuck in business as usual and the blinders of privilege to actually solve the real problems. all those clunkers we took out of the used car market? all those people driving real clunkers who couldn't afford to trade them in for a new car, even with a $4000 credit? those are the people who needed the real help. not opportunistic humvee drivers (i may be exaggerating, a little?)
and they totally ruined the engines of all those vehicles in order to get reimbursed for them. which has butchered elements of the market for used parts, too.

they're helping out people who look like them who might have seen a dip in their retirement accounts, but not the people on the sharp end... those services are getting cut.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

not opportunistic humvee drivers (i may be exaggerating, a little?)

Nope, you're not. In fact, not only were vehicles in that weight class still eligible for Cash for Clunkers, but unlike actual family cars, they didn't even have to meet a fuel savings target. They just had to be a minimum number of years old. Show up with your 2001 Hummer H1 or Ford Expedition or F450 or other über-mega-truck, pass go, collect $5500 towards the cost of the new one. Laugh all the way to the gas station. You don't even have to "prove" it's for business use.

Cash for Clunkers, just like TARP and the porkulus, was a gigantic fraud perpetrated upon the American people by its own government. And "healthcare reform" will be no different.

Congress is just like a computer: Garbage in, garbage out. You send human garbage to Capitol Hill, and look what comes streaming back out....

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Noonan should hang her head in shame, for being one of Ronald Reagan's speechwriters while he lived and for being one of his cheerleaders now he's dead. The years from roughly 1950 to 1980 were a time of rising incomes for the middle class; there were hiccups and problems here and there, but mostly the schools were good, jobs were secure, pay was adequate. Then Reagan and his puppet masters got their supply-side hands on things, and real wages have been going down ever since. Ever since the "Reagan Revolution (TM)" the rich -- those who own -- have been getting richer, and the poor -- those who work -- have been getting poorer.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

She was also a cheerleader for the Bush II administration, probably the worst of my lifetime, and perhaps the worst in US history. Bush II could well be described as a lucky callous child, and if enough conservatives had said so when it might have mattered, about a million people might still be alive, and the world would be much better off today.

Being a ... I don't know what Noonan is ... but whatever it is, being it means never having to even admit error.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Have you considered the possibility that maybe she finally caught on, herself?

I don't share your confidence that the Middle Eastern war could have been avoided. I think we probably only really had a choice of where and when to fight it. Going into Iraq when we did at least let us choose the battleground, for that phase. Afghanistan, though, is going to continue to suck for a long, long time.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

That's the "never having to admit error" part--she doesn't seem to have caught on. Instead, she seems to be looking for a reward for fighting the fire she helped start. Blame the people left to clean up the mess for the mess, and run against them. That platform may be a winner, too.

Perhaps a Middle-East/Central Asia war was unavoidable, but the Iraq war was avoidable--Iraq was impoverished, contained, and no threat. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came from the Arabian peninsula, which saw not even a reprimand from that administration.

In the long run, however, the worst single foreign policy error of that administration may have been failing to engage China's neo-mercantilism.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Perhaps a Middle-East/Central Asia war was unavoidable, but the Iraq war was avoidable--Iraq was impoverished, contained, and no threat. 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came from the Arabian peninsula, which saw not even a reprimand from that administration.

I continue to be completely baffled why Washington continues to pretend that Saudi Arabia is our friend. They just like our money and our military materiél.

In the long run, however, the worst single foreign policy error of that administration may have been failing to engage China's neo-mercantilism.

Out of curiosity, how would you propose "engaging" that in any way that would not be perceived as a hostile act? American business was, and is, complicit in the Chinese New Mercantilism up to its eyeballs.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

And we like Arabian oil. Al-Qaeda is an outlawed party in Saudi Arabia, after all--the House of Saud has been a pretty good ally. Arabians themselves were generally fairly sympathetic to the USA prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Engaging trade disputes are what international trade talks are for. Undoubtedly, the Chinese would have been displeased had the issue been raised, but I think they could have been maneuvered into backing down. As masters stand, the Bush II administration has left the USA in a much poorer position to conduct trade negotiations.

The simplest engaging the Bush II administration could have undertaken, however, was to prevent the housing bubble, which put a huge amount of US debt into Chinese hands.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Al-Qaeda is an outlawed party in Saudi Arabia, after all--the House of Saud has been a pretty good ally.

In public, yeah. Then they turn around and give money to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

The simplest engaging the Bush II administration could have undertaken, however, was to prevent the housing bubble, which put a huge amount of US debt into Chinese hands.

How would you propose they should have done that? As it was, I believe several Republican senators tried to point out that the financial sector was over-extending itself, and they basically got shouted down.


Personally, I have always felt one of the greatest failures of the Bush II administration was the way they first pissed away the massive international support for the US after 9/11, then used 9/11 domestically to justify the PATRIOT Act, which may be the largest and farthest-reaching invasion of civil liberties in US history — and which Obama has shown no sign as yet of revoking the smallest provision of. The ratchet only goes one way. After all, anything you inherited from a predecessor, you can just blame on your predecessor...