HOW KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS WORKS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Speaking of Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote the book Democracy in America back in 1835 -- "The Frenchman wrote that those in authority in American government thought they had to watch over the citizenry. Their use of power was 'absolute, attentitive to detail, regular, provident and gentle.' The 'sovereign,' he continued, puts its arms around us through 'petty regulations' too complicated for anyone to figure out. He added that it 'does not tyrannize; it gets in the way; it curtails, it enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies,' ultimately reducing the people to timid animals 'of which the government is the shepard.' One day, said Tocqueville, the despotism will grow nastier and harder ...'"
-- Jay Ambrose, syndicated columnist.

That day has arrived -- DWD

SOCIAL SECURITY 101

For those interested, you can view my most recent editorial by clicking on "SOCIAL SECURITY 101" on the bottom right margin of this page.

Have a nice day.

DWD

DISCERNING CARTOONS

Very funny ... but no laughing matter -- DWD

THE ENTITLEMENT SOCIETY

For those interested, you can read the latest editorial that I have submitted to the Orange County Register by clicking on "THE ENTITLEMENT SOCIETY" on the lower right margin of this page.

Have a good day.

DWD

GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC AGENDA -- UPDATE

The government's central economic planners are not as smart as they profess themselves to be. Maybe they should leave us well alone instead of spending billions of our tax dollars for our "benefit." Witness their own projections and actual results (blue line=projections; brown dots=actual results):

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?

This from the Cato Institute on the report of lavish spending by the GSA which caused the head of the agency to resign:

"As the politicians trip over one another to make empty promises to end such abuses, keep in mind that Bureaucrats Gone Wild is what you’re going to get when you give human beings the ability to spend gobs of other people’s money. The only sure way to stop government employees from wasting money is to stop giving them money in the first place..."

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
-- John Adams

RE: OBAMA -- I COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER (OR AS WELL)

This taken from a post by International Liberty:

Today, Mark Helprin ... in the Wall Street Journal, commenting on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of Obama's interest in the European economic model.

Both in his re-election campaign and as the core principle of his presidency, Barack Obama asks America to cast off reliance on the free market—because, in his characterization, the free market "doesn't work"—in favor of the European model of ever-tightening, ever-regulating, ever-expanding governance. This he does, astonishingly, at the very moment of the European model's long-predictable crisis, collapse, bankruptcy, and devolution. With his trademark certainty he proposes—indeed, at times commands—that we follow him over the Niagara to which his back is turned. ...Promiscuous endorsement of things European, inveterate in the president's academic coterie, has long been characteristic of American snobs. ...in suppressing and over-engineering their economies they court national bankruptcies. Just as reckless are their efforts to ameliorate economic stagnation via the all-guzzling welfare state. Shall we create more jobs by aping Europe, which since 1990 has averaged 9.16% unemployment while ours was 5.95%? ...like the leaders of the bankrupt states of Europe, President Obama believes that the key to prosperity is to regulate, engineer, and direct the economy; to raise taxes; to augment the powers of government; to substitute collective largess for family cohesion; to spend money that does not exist... In short, the president and his progressives are chasing after a specter. Because the president is apparently repelled by the principles of the American Founding and lacks an alternative other than the European model, nothing else is in his quiver as he is driven by the dread of a future absent his omnipresent intervention.

THE ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION 101

The government monopoly in education is harming our nation greatly (as this short video explains).

http://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/school-choice-video-shows-why-government-education-monopoly-should-be-disbanded/

ONE WAY GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY CAN CREATE JOBS

"Even a small 5% reduction in the regulatory budget [could result in] an increase in employment by 1.2 million jobs annually."

That is the conclusion of a paper by the Phoenix Center. The following is from their executive summary:

"…we use fifty years of data and modern econometric methods to provide an estimate of the relationship between government spending on regulatory activity and economic growth and job recovery. We estimate that reducing the size of the regulatory bureaucracy may grow the economy and invigorate the labor market. Even a small 5% reduction in the regulatory budget (about $2.8 billion) is estimated to result in about $75 billion in expanded private-sector GDP each year, with an increase in employment by 1.2 million jobs annually. On average, eliminating the job of a single regulator grows the American economy by $6.2 million and nearly 100 private sector jobs annually. Conversely, each million dollar increase in the regulatory budget costs the economy 420 private sector jobs."

As stated by International Liberty: No wonder that even the pro-establishment crowd at the World Economic Forum ranks the United States as only 49th in the world when measuring “burden of government regulation.”

UPSIDE DOWN ECONOMICS

For those interested, you can read my latest editorial by clicking on "UPSIDE DOWN ECONOMICS" on the right margin of the page.

Have a great day.

DWD

HOW TO GET ELECTED 101 -- DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Try to get a majority of citizens receiving money from the federal government, then cry that the opposition party (Republicans) will cut your benefits if they are elected.

P.S. -- About half of all American households are now receiving payments from the federal government and the number is rising.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

The bigger the Big Government, the smaller everything else: First, other pillars of civil society are crowded out of the public space [religion, etc.]; then, the individual gets crowded out...
-- Mark Steyn

GOVERNMENT DICTIONARY: "SPENDING CUTS"

According to the politically correct government dictionary, "spending cuts" means "increasing federal government expenditures by billions of dollars, just not by as many billions as we had previously hoped."

Witness the following chart -- before and after the "drastic cuts."