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In case all of the news is getting you down, David Goldman has the top ten reasons the world is not coming to an end.
Japanese-style stagnation, not economic collapse, is the most likely scenario for the US. Harrisburg, PA and Greece may go down the drain (and maybe even California and New York City and Illinois), but that’s not the end of the world. It’s just the end of them.
10) China’s controlled growth deceleration is doing reasonably well, according to Cantor Fitzgerald’s Asia strategist Uwe Parpart, my old Bank of America colleague.
9) China’s banks may be choking on bad loans, but China’s massive foreign exchange reserves can cover the problem out of petty cash and rounding error.
8) Southeast Asia continues to grow, with local stock exchanges up about 20% year to date.
7) India is doing well. Add up these first four items and half the world’s population is doing just fine. …
Bret Stephens comments on anti-Semitism in Europe.
…Earlier this month, Karel De Gucht, the European Union’s trade commissioner and a former foreign minister of Belgium, gave an interview to a Flemish radio station in which he offered the view that the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were sure to founder on two accounts: first, because Jews are excessively influential in the U.S; second, because they are not the sorts to be reasoned with. …
…consider that last year the Anti-Defamation League conducted a survey of European attitudes toward Jews in seven different countries. Do Jews have “too much power in the business world”? In France, 33% said this was “probably true”; in Spain it was 56%. Were Jews to some degree responsible for the global economic crisis? In Germany, 30% thought so; in Austria, 43% did. A separate 2008 Pew Survey also found that 25% of Germans, 36% of Poles and 46% of Spaniards had a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of Jews. …
In the Telegraph, UK, James Delingpole wraps an interesting article around a stunning confession from Fidel Castro.
…Over lunch with Atlantic magazine correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, the Cuban dictator confessed: “The Cuban model doesn’t really work for us any more.” Unable to believe his ears, Goldberg asked one of his neighbours, a Latin American expert, to interpret this extraordinary statement. She explained: “He wasn’t rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgement that under ‘the Cuban model’ the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country.”
Hmm. Sounds very much like a “rejection of the Revolution” to me. And if indeed it was, then it must come pretty close to being a historical first. Did Mao ever express any regrets about the 20 million who died during his Great Leap Forward? Was Stalin ever moved to tears over the millions more who were shot in the back of the head by his secret police or froze and starved in his Gulags? Of course not. That’s the thing about Leftist ideologues. Whether they’re major league mass murderers such as Pol Pot or simply pathological destroyers of economies like Gordon Brown, they usually remain in a state of blissful self-delusion right to the bitter end. …
…It’s nice, obviously, that the cigar-smoking beardie has finally had the grace to acknowledge the error of his ways. But shouldn’t he have worked this out 50 years earlier, and spared the poor Cuban people a heap of communist misery?
John Fund tells how the president is letting D.C. kids down. Government by a faculty lounge ideologue.
Education reformers will be watching Washington D.C.’s Democratic primary for mayor today. Incumbent Adrian Fenty is trailing Vincent Gray, the chair of D.C.’s City Council, in a race that is turning into a referendum on the shake-up of the local public schools by Michelle Rhee, the Fenty-appointed schools chief.
A Washington City Paper poll found that 53% of voters believe her tenure is a major issue in the campaign. Since she took charge of the D.C. schools in 2007, Ms. Rhee has fired poorly performing teachers, linked teacher pay to performance, and tried to shut down schools that continually fail to improve. She is almost certain to lose her job should Mr. Gray, who is supported by teacher unions, win today.
…President Obama spoke highly of Ms. Rhee and Mr. Fenty, one of his earliest supporters, during the 2008 campaign. But he has been largely AWOL from the Democratic race for mayor, even though it’s taking place in his backyard.
“The president should have said something in support of Fenty,” Juan Williams, a journalist with NPR and the author of books on the civil rights movement, told the Daily Caller. Mr. Fenty himself said last week that he had asked Mr. Obama for help, although he didn’t expect much to materialize. D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, a Fenty backer, added that Mr. Obama “could have won the election for Adrian” and made sure Ms. Rhee had time to finish her important work. Mr. Obama talks a good game on education reform, telling an audience recently that “the status quo in education is unacceptable.” But when he had a chance to make a difference and ensure the continuance of education reform in the nation’s capital, he did the functional equivalent of what he did over 140 times while serving in the Illinois legislature: identify himself as only being “present.”
Ed Morrissey remarks on one part of Obamacare being repealed. It makes you wonder who convinced Obama and all the other liberals to eat crow.
The momentum to repeal ObamaCare picked up a little momentum in an unlikely place: the White House. After facing a deluge of criticism for new tax records mandates that threaten to drown both the IRS and small businesses, Congress finally scheduled an attempt to remove that portion of the new law. Yesterday, the Obama administration quietly asked Democrats to expedite the process and eliminate the 1099 requirements…
…The media may have missed it, but we’ve been talking about this for at least eleven months. Cato reminded everyone about it in April, and yet it has taken five months for the White House to conclude that it will create huge costs and administrative burdens for business and the IRS alike.
Had this bill been processed normally through committees and debated honestly, this flaw would have gotten immediate attention. Instead, the ObamaCare bill got written in back rooms, rushed to the floor of both chambers, instead of developed in the normal process. The excuse was that it was too important to get vetted, and too time-critical to delay it or pass it in components. Well, this is what happens when Congressional leadership says that they have to pass a bill to find out what’s in it, and when they drop 2800 pages of legislative text on members just 48 hours before floor votes. …
…Let’s just reflect on the fact that Democrats now claim that they backed a bill in the face of overwhelming opposition from voters, and now say they didn’t understand it when they did. And instead of cutting the spending in the bill, Democrats insist on raising taxes to cover their own mistake. If that’s not an election-year ad, I don’t know what is.
We have another post from Ed Morrissey on a Senate seat that everyone thought was safely in the Dem column.
Try to remember than six months ago, almost everyone wrote off the Senate race in Connecticut after Richard Blumenthal replaced the retiring Chris Dodd in the race. Democrats practically own Connecticut, and Republicans would be foolish to spend money on a race that Blumenthal should have won by twenty or more points. Fortunately for the GOP, it had self-funding candidate Linda McMahon — and a gaffe-prone Democrat — in a cycle that should erase any notion of safe seats. Quinnipiac’s latest poll shows McMahon within six points of the lead…
…With seven weeks to go, McMahon appears to be gaining momentum, and perhaps in part because of the experience argument. It’s an open seat, but Blumenthal represents the Democratic Party establishment in a cycle uniquely hostile to that very entity. His multiple gaffes and exposure of dishonest statements has eroded his standing in Connecticut, although not yet to the point where he has sunk below 51% among likely voters. McMahon has run a smart campaign, but the difference in this race is that Connecticut voters got a lot more acquainted with Blumenthal than they had in previous elections.
That 51% is still enough to win the seat, and McMahon is still an underdog, but this is a winnable race for Republicans.
David Warren takes on an interesting challenge.
…A cynical operator treats humans like dogs. Instead of reasoning with them, he manipulates with treats, and soothing words; or by invoking bogeymen, arousing fears, and pulling on their bureaucratic leashes. He teaches them to heel, stand, sit, sit and stay, fetch, beg. And all the while pretending to be humble; “the dog’s best friend.”
…The political equivalent is, “Vote for me, and you will feel good about yourself.” You’ll be caring and sharing, much more intelligent, in with the winners, and cool, way cool. Vote for the other guy and all you’ll ever get is some miserable tax cut. And you’ll feel like such a dork. …
…Mass manipulation wouldn’t be possible without people organized into a mass, and the means of delivering messages to them through mass media. Our democracy today is mass democracy, something almost infinitely removed from the original Greek idea, of democracy on the direct, personal scale. …
…In articles to come, God willing, I want to wrestle with what I believe to be our greatest political challenge: how to dismantle our morally and fiscally bankrupt “mass democracy” — or “bobblehead democracy,” if you will. And, how to return to the kind in which the citizen himself participates in decisions directly and personally.
And we have four posts from one of our favorites, Jennifer Rubin.
A new requirement for elected office is needed. How about ten years experience in the private sector, before you can make life miserable for the people that create or hold real jobs? Perhaps that would inject some sanity into government policies. Jennifer Rubin reports on the economic effects of the tragic stupidity from our current elected officials.
To all but the Democrats and the class-warfare mongers (I repeat myself), this comes as no surprise:
“The uncertainty over looming tax increases is starting to affect both investing and corporate decision-making.
The economy remains the biggest factor in many investors’ and businesses’ decisions. But worries over whether Congress will extend some of the expiring Bush-era tax breaks are emerging as another important one. … Small-business owners say unease about tax policy, along with the economy, has led them to hold off on hiring and investment. And many advisers are encouraging well-to-do clients to sell appreciated assets to avoid higher capital-gains taxes.”
Until Obama offered a round of business tax cuts, the Democrats had operated as if tax policy had a negligible impact on employment and investment. So they were “stumped” when jobs didn’t materialize. Lo and behold — who knew? — businesses are getting ready for the tax hit by hiring fewer workers:
If the administration had an entrepreneur or two in its ranks, if there were not merely pols and academicians populating the White House, someone might have seen this coming. But we have a president and a vice president who have never run anything, let alone a profitmaking enterprise, not to mention political hacks like David Axelrod who froth with contempt for “Wall Street” (i.e., those who supply and manage capital). So they are amazed that all their handiwork has indeed paralyzed employers.
It’s exactly what you figured would happen if a leftist law professor wound up in the Oval Office.
Rubin slams Christiane Amanpour for her bias and lack of professionalism.
In addition to her softball interview with Imam Abdul Rauf on This Week, Christiane Amanpour hosted a panel on the state of Islam. … All three of the panelists were pro–Ground Zero. Even worse, Amanpour — with not a shred of evidence — claimed that mosque opponents are taking the position that al-Qaeda is building the Ground Zero mosque. Huh? Is anyone making that argument? She also takes as fact that the Ground Zero incident was ”whipped up by certain political interests.”
This sort of performance merely reinforces the perception that Amanpour plays fast and loose with the facts. And let’s get real — there is more than sloppiness at play here. …
…As a colleague with mainstream-news experience observed recently, it is hard to “believe ABC expects to hold or build an audience this way.” Maybe an MSNBC shouting-heads show would be up her alley — but a serious Sunday network talk show? At some point I suspect that the ABC brain trust will have to admit error and get her out of there.
Rubin shares Beltway talk on Pelosi’s demise.
Democrats aren’t waiting for the election returns to start planning Nancy Pelosi’s ouster. Politico reports:
…“This is a subject that everybody in town is thinking about,” said a former House Democrat who keeps close contact with his former colleagues. …
“If we lose it badly, Pelosi would have to leave, as might the whole leadership team,” said a veteran House Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “I can see Hoyer becoming Minority Leader. And I can imagine that Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) would stay as Whip, but then retire. They could become transitional leaders as we look for new leadership. It would have to sort itself out.”
Pelosi may have peaked on the day she assumed office, as an identity-politics champion. In four years she’s helped drive her party into the ground and our country deeper and deeper into debt. Rather than draining the swamp, she’s coddled corrupt pols. Her “historic” achievement — ramming through ObamaCare — may turn to dust as states opt out of the individual mandate and a new Congress defunds and then sets out to repeal the measure. Come to think of it, that may be Obama’s legacy as well.
And Rubin blogs how the Left has lost that lovin’ feeling.
Obama’s public persona is so predictable and his image so overexposed that even the left is over him. He’s gone from fascinating and cool to a crashing bore in less than two years. … Maureen Dowd: “How did the first president of color become so colorless?”
…Why are liberals so bored all of a sudden? … There are, I think, several things at work.
First, style — that “superior temperament” and the coolness — was what attracted many urban liberals to him in the first place. Obama was in essence the latest trend, equivalent to this season’s fashion or the newest cell phone, which they had to have. But trends by definition come and go, and surface impressions and infatuation don’t last long.
Second, it is easier to admit that the candidate they swooned for is boring than it is to say he’s incompetent (or an empty suit). The former implies that Obama has lost his charm, the latter suggests that their own judgment was faulty. This also neatly sidesteps the troubling matter that Obama’s policies have tanked. (If he could only be more eloquent about the trillions spent, the public wouldn’t dessert him, the thinking goes.) …
Investor’s Business Daily editors jeer the 2007 Congress for destroying jobs, unnecessarily increasing costs for taxpayers, and perpetuating a green hoax.
Eco-Extremism: A light bulb factory closes in Virginia as mandated fluorescents are made in China. It’s now a crime to make or ship for sale 75-watt incandescent bulbs in the European Union. Welcome to green hell.
…The General Electric light bulb factory in Winchester, Va., closed this month, a victim, along with its 200 employees, of a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014.
…Washington’s force and coercion are necessary because it seems the great unwashed can’t seem to see the benefits or ignore the risks of compact fluorescents, or CFLs.
…It’s said that CFL bulbs are more economical in the long run because they supposedly use up to 80% less energy than old-style bulbs and don’t burn out as quickly. Though we’re not fully convinced of these claims, we do know that CFL bulbs are more expensive, costing up to six times as much as equivalent incandescent bulbs. Because they are made of glass tubes twisted into a spiral, they also require more hand labor and therefore cost more. …
…Despite governments’ effort to market them, CFLs are not necessarily better. Tests conducted by the London Telegraph found that using a single lamp to illuminate a room, an 11-watt CFL produced only 58% of the illumination of an equivalent 60-watt incandescent — even after a 10-minute warm-up that consumers have found necessary for CFLs to reach their full brightness.
And in his blog, Don Surber matches Simpsons’ characters to the president and his minions.