Monday, March 30, 2009

Always Right On The Mark

This Mark Steyn piece is another gem. Give it a read.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent article. He is right about so many things.

Obama's limits on charitable contributiond deductions isn't about taxes. It is about making people even more dependent on the gov't.

Obama views the market as the enemy and it shows in the Dow. But capitalism has done more to improve worldwide wealth and living conditions than any other -ism.

Charles D said...

Steyn is obviously smoking something.

The problem with Obama's financial plan is that he is so wedded to “a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism” that he is handing our tax money to Wall Street with no real strings attached and now they have dropped the "mark to market" rule so banks can claim things are worth whatever they like even if they are worthless in the marketplace.

Sure he's all up in arms about the increase in the deficit - please put links to the many columns where he lambasted Bush for doing the same thing. He's also having cold sweats imagining regulations that Obama might put on business, even though there's no evidence he is planning to do so.

The only real problem with Obama is that his actions are not bold enough to actually stimulate the economy and fix the issues that got us into this mess. Why? Because he is too wedded to discredited free-market economics.

PS the Dow is now going back up so that must mean that Obama views the market as a friend.

Anonymous said...

No, that was primarily due to the mark-to-market accounting rule change, which was quite welcomed. That was a big part of the current problem, though it is easier for Obama & Co. to demonize the people they took contributions from and whose bonuses they approved than it is to explain to people how flawed accounting principles can exacerbate a problem.

Marshal Art said...

DL,

Steyn doesn't have a normal archive method of tracking down his past work. Could be due to how many periodicals run his stuff, but they don't all run the same stuff. In any case, I've found this so far, and it'll have to do ya for now. I'll try to find something more later when I have more time. You'll notice, if you actually read it, that though the Bush move upon which he comments isn't exactly what he's talking about in the link for this thread, it's in the same ballpark. The best he says is that it's a "curious" move for a conservative. He's definitely not supporting the move.

I'm still waiting for some type of explanation from folks like yourself who use terms like "discredited" in connection with free-market economics. If you think this mess was created by a market bereft of gov't interference, then you're the one smoking something, and damn you for not sharing.

Charles D said...

Since we haven't had "government interference" in the financial markets for the last 8-10 years (unless you are counting interfering to help the bankers rip us off), then it's hard to see how that de-regulation helped us any and easy to see how badly it hurt us.

4 is right about the mark-to-market rule. You have to wonder how "freeing" banks to value their assets based on their fantasy of their value rather than what the real market will pay is going to increase confidence in the financial markets. I wonder if I can go into my bank and get a home equity loan based on the value I would like my home to be worth. Somehow I bet this only applies to the big boys.

Obama's economic team (Geithner and Summers) are engaged in turning over what's left of our economy, our treasury and our government to their buddies on Wall Street. That's not socialism - that's crony capitalism, banana republic style.