DISQUS

MJ and Billy Mays...No one is paying attention. Whether Sanford is cooked or not, time will tell.

And by extortion, I mean leaning on banks not to squak about the raw deal bondholders are getting in return for bailout dollars.

It's funny how many left minded folks get all bent out of shape about the dollars that corporate types get which until recently was dictated by the market. Meanwhile, you have scores of university heads making 500k+ which rely heavily on gov't funds whether its student loans or research grants. Professional jealousy of the highest order.

Horseshit. Obama continues much of Bush's policies. He's using TARP money to keep dinosaur car companies afloat which is illegal. He's usurping the rule of law to violate bond holders in favor of the unions. He's running up record deficits which he campaigned against.

It's not the media's job to be satisfied. You really are a dolt. You speak so simply: "Knowing the mess he has to clean up" Like he can put everything in its place, click his heels and bring us back to prosperity. The economy needs to unwind, so that things can progress naturally. Didn't we already have 8 years prior of stimulus re: the housing bubble.

The point is Obama has never had teeth in the the private sector game, yet he feels compelled to manage <insert favorite industry here> without any modicum of restraint. So, yes just as you are snarky, Obama is scary.

More accurate:

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have begun to use "extortion" tactics against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

To be fair, the media gave Bush a free pass for the first three years or so also.

Liberaltarian post FAIL. Great Job!

Painful to watch...

"In a little twist of irony, Wilkinson and his American fiancee are also contemplating a foreign adoption."

Wha, wha, what?!

Jesus. I wasn't at the rally, but WTF is your problem with the tea party rallies. Your actual article on it was balanced. However, your recent blog entries have been filled with snark and venom. Maybe the DC event was downright awful. I don't know. You seem to be more concerned with impressing your friends (like Yglesias) than giving these folks a fair shake. Yes, there are plenty of kooks at these rallies and the right wing media/power base glommed on. You seemed to have focused on these aspects exclusively. Doesn't every rally have its kooks and folks looking to steer things in different directions?

Folks are genuinely concerned at the levels of spending and transfers of wealth via Federal attempts at fixing the economy. This is not necessarily an anti-Obama meme. I heard plenty of these concerns during the initial bailouts and TARP pt. 1.

Denninger gives his report of what happened:
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/961...
Maybe its too unbiased the other way.

David, please a little less snark and a little more balance. Thanks.

I think Cracked magazine nailed this issue in their recent article:

http://www.cracked.com/article_17224_5-retarded...

Read: #3 Nebraska's "Give Us Your Troubled Child" Law Somehow Backfires

"This fact was not lost on scores negligent parents, who suddenly began arriving from as far away as Florida to drop off their ill-mannered and mentally troubled youngsters. But the shit really hit the fan when a 34-year-old man dropped nine, yes, NINE kids off at a Nebraska hospital, ranging in age from one to 17. "

Wouldn't applying 9) rely on ignoring 7)? That is, not depending on retirement investing creates reliance on Social Security (which is a Ponzi scheme). or am I missing something.

"This is what was tried, with disastrous results, by President Herbert Hoover’s administration."

Look at this http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/budget.php
Now tell me where Hoover reduced spending?

In the election vs Roosevelt, John Garner, Roosevelt's running mate called Hoover, "the greatest spending administration in peacetime in all of history." He forgot to mention, "so far"

PS- Missed your great reporting at Reason. Glad to have found you here.

Well said Will, well said. Gov't involvement in the telcom and television industries seems to have been a net negative. The liberals would be hard pressed to present evidence to the contrary. Great Job!

Well, in part it is "adolescent faith" because you cannot throw money at something and expect breakthroughs. If that were the case we'd have super incredible solar power by now. Look at how many dollars were thrown at that problem, and how little we've gained by it.

However, incrementalism, which Will was talking about has been entirely provided by the private sector: AJAX technology (MS), Flash (Macromedia), High speed internet (Cable and Telcos), Internet search (Google), CDN (Akami/Limelight), Mobile internet devices (various companies), Auction Marketplaces (ebay), free personal ads (craigslist), etc. Additionally, many of the communication access points can be attributed to deregulation of the telcos. I doubt individual ISPs could have cracked the market prior to telco deregulation. The same deregulation brought us: cell phones, cheap long distance, cable modems, call waiting/forwarding, etc. While the gov't can bring about research breakthroughs, the private sector eats its lunch regarding incrementalism. To deny that is to be a free market hating socialist :P

From my understanding, many of the NASA breakthroughs were actually developed in the private sector: Teflon (DuPont), microwave ovens (Raytheon), Velcro (Georges de Mestral), Integrated Circuit (Texas Insrument/Fairchild Semiconductor), Tang (General Foods)! Landing on the moon is something else, but I prefer little things that make my life easier everyday.

Have kids and be done with it already. Life over.