Disqus - Latest Comments for rightcommentary

Re: Register to Win a Limited-Edition autographed “Liberty and Tyranny”

rightcommentary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:42:41 -0000

We have a winner! :)

Colleen Rummel of Virginia (I'm not going reveal anymore to protect her privacy) responded to me this morning. She was the second person drawn.

Congrats to Colleen! I'll be shipping the book tomorrow.

I appreciate all who participated. I'll be closing off comments to registered visitors only later this week...

I may be giving some other stuff away. I get stuff from publishers and publicists all the time. I've got some good books that I'll never get a chance to read - perhaps they can go to use with my conservative base of readers! :)

Best,

Bryan

Re: Register to Win a Limited-Edition autographed “Liberty and Tyranny”

rightcommentary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:31:16 -0000

The originally chosen winner has not contacted me... I think 3 days is enough to wait.

I'm selecting (randomly) a new winner and will be emailing him/her in a few minutes.

Best,

Bryan

Re: Register to Win a Limited-Edition autographed “Liberty and Tyranny”

rightcommentary — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:00:54 -0000

Dear Readers:

I did the drawing this morning after I sorted out all eligible contestants. I've emailed the "winner" and I am awaiting confirmation of his/her eligibility. Once I confirm everything, I'll post who the winner is...

Thanks for participating... :) I had several hundred signups...

I will look to give away other things in the future. I get stuff from publicists, etc., and I usually don't have time to read them all or evaluate them all. I'm happy to give them away to readers, so we may do this again!

Best,

Bryan

Re: Obamafire of the Vanities

rightcommentary — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:06:13 -0000

Umm... what? I don't speak tinfoil hat speak.

Re: Why Democrats always raise taxes…

rightcommentary — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:44:44 -0000

Dear reader:

Okay - let's deconstruct some of this stuff since your reply contains several elements.

First of all, the issue of the "public goods" you cite - I don't suggest that these things aren't necessary and proper activities of government. They do not, however, create wealth. If they did, then spending more money on roads would make us wealthier. Does it? (Didn't the last time I checked). I know the Solomon's forture we spend on Education doesn't make us any wealthier either... nor has it made our educational system the envy of the world. Finally, while our Military is a fine fighting force of bad-asses, they don't generate any wealth either... otherwise, countries throughout history would build armies to increase wealth. Instead, what these public goods represent is the reallocation of private wealth to provide collective benefit. Roads, bridges, schools, etc., could be purchased privately. Some economists, like Milton Friedman, argued that all government services could be bargained for privately. I don't know if I go that far - but clearly there are some things the government can do better than private enterprise (like explore space, national defense, deliver the mail - although that's questionable now, etc.). Your argument (and its sarcasm) is false.

Second, the "largest tax increase in history" is Mr. Obama's plans if they go through. Let's not kid ourselves. However, I suspect you are whining about Bush 41's increases. Those tax increases caused (as I recall) a recession. Bush 41 was no better than his son at managing the economy and the electorate stoned him in the head for it. Read my lips - no new taxes was rather unambiguous. When he broke that pledge, the electorate broke his back.

Also, you fundamentally misunderstand budgeting under Reagan. During Reagan's term, the Congress passed GRH - Graham-Rudman-Hollings, with the support of Reagan, to manage the deficits. It was the Democrats in CONGRESS that needed controlling, not the President. Reagan made sizeable cuts throughout the government, including the elimination of some federal entities entirely (something that has not been done since Reagan). However, since Congress, and not the PRESIDENT, set the GRH targets, they decided how big the deficits would be. Not until Gingrich and "Contract for America" does Congressional spending come under control. Oddly enough, that happens mostly during Clinton....

As for the Surplus you suggest Bush 43 squandered... oral sex and semen stained dresses had more to do with that than anything Clinton did. Clinton was a complete idiot when it came to the economy. However, the Monica Lewinsky affair so gripped his administration and Congress, he was unable to enact the legislation he wanted to punish the tech and financial sectors. The White House saw these groups making money and wanted to go after them. Instead, because he was completely cut at the knees with Congress fighting to keep his job, neither Congress nor the White House, could get anything done on a domestic budget. That's why we wound up with a surplus - the government ran basically on incremental COLA increases for 2 budget cycles and the tech sector tax receipts exploded. Had "Hillary Care" passed and Clinton not been a philandering jackass... I doubt much we would have had a surplus.

In any event, a surplus isn't such a great thing - read my blog on "Do Deficits matter."

So again - you're wrong.

Finally, your reading of the Great Depression is flawed. Let's not look a "bubble gum" statistics from newspapers... and instead rely on real economic data....

http://faculty.tcu.edu/jlov...

Now - see there where the graphs don't turn around until 1939... yeah.. that's when the US begins sending men, material, and money to our allies who are busy fighting the Battle of France. Hence my statement that it didn't do much until WWII.

As for the "fools rally" in 1937 followed by the "mini-crash" of 1938... um... that's when your man FDR's money ran out and the "mega stimulus" from 1935 ran out of cash. The New Deal had run out of money.... thus proving the other argument I've made... namely, it's unsustainable to deficit spend - since it creates no real underlying wealth.

As for Mr. Obama - I don't care if the money is spent or not. It's obligated. Once it is obligated, it has an immedate deleterious impact at the federal level that we're seeing immediately. Secondly, let's accept your argument as true - then why hasn't the money been spent huh? We needed to "rush rush rush" to get done or unemployment was going to go more than 8%. Here we are at 10+% (probably closer to 12% in reality) and it continues to march upwards.

As for facts and logic... you made a couple of fallacious claims and cited a mickey-mouse chart that shows GDP in nominal (versus real terms, thus showing inflation as "wealth gains" which is false) terms. I'd say I have a better handle of the facts than you do.

But keep reading... some of this may eventually penetrate.

Bryan

Re: I feel totally stimulated… don’t you?

rightcommentary — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:20:12 -0000

For those who aren't familiar... the Fair Tax plan is essentially replacing income tax with consumption taxes....

http://www.fairtaxplan.org/...

I think it's worth reading about. I've studied it... and I think it's a dandy idea... but, I didn't recommend it because I don't see Congress really abolishing the IRS tax code... thus, admittedly my plan is a "repair" versus a reform.

Re: Why Democrats always raise taxes…

rightcommentary — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:32:58 -0000

Wow. Harsh words from a man who puts up no argument of his own. It comforts me, however, to know that the post causes you such discomfort... when adversaries squeal... I know I'm going the right direction.

As an economist, I think I've laid out a reasonable case in 1500 words. I'm not aware of it violating any maxims of economics - although as I stated, the two fundamental premises are contested.

If your problem is you don't like the fact that this leaves no room to argue to the contrary... that's not my problem.

As for the latter part of 2008 (which is what I presume your snide comment about unemployment was about), the reality is that the economy suffers natural business bust/boom cycles. Sometimes these cycles are deep and long, sometimes not.

We could argue over the reason for the downturn... but I will just say that I believe Bush gravely errored in how he made policy. Eight years of doing things like Democrats screwed up the economy. The one thing that he did that was consistent with conservatism - the Bush Tax cut - worked rather well. Giving seniors enhanced medical benefits through the prescription drug plan - asinine. Giving illegals more benefits and encouraging them to come here through lax enforcement (and worse, proposed amnesty) - asinine. Not pounding Fannie and Freddie earlier (yes, I recognize Republicans ran Congress during most of this time) - Asinine.

The only slack I'm going to give President Bush was on TARP. While in the end, that was also another asinine program... at least that was predicated on some beliefs I can appreciate. In late 2008, the US financial system was facing a massive international run on it... out of panic... the Government enabled the TARP. Paulson and the President were wrong - they made things worse... however, it was tough to see that at the time...

I am sure you're one of those types who are blindly committed to the "cause Obama" - so I don't intend to convince you of this... but read the history of what FDR did with respect to the Great Depression. His own people, after awhile, were unconvinced that deficit spending had any impact on the economic output.

In circumstances where there is a complete breakdown of confidence, like there was during the Great Depression, and like what I feel we are teetering on now, massive stimulus bills do nothing. It didn't work in the 1930's... and the fact that unemployment keeps moving on its upward direction to infinity... shows it's not working now.

However, the taxes issue - go back and look at history... our largest (in terms of nominal and real dollars) tax increases occur during Democrats.

Re: Hey Barry! Regardez le bel âne sur celui-là!

rightcommentary — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:45:52 -0000

Saw this today... I think I'm still right: :)

http://www.gotchamediablog....