18 April 2011

On Douthian Neodizziness



Dear Dr. Bones,

If we broaden our notion of "serious discussion of economics" to include a purely qualitative scribbler in the path of Party and Ideology like Prof. Dr. Douthat of the New York Time Company, won't the eventual mess be at least a little bit our fault too?

Meanwhile, I cannot believe in "Douthat Makes it Up" -- that Don Rossito concocted this morning’s tripe and bologna all by himself. From the internal evidence it looks as if some scamster who actually understood her scam handed the little laddie a set of talkin’ points in favor of it that was beyond him. Still, ¿maybe I am the dunce? Let's see:

The crux of the underlying racket must, I think, be located in the sentence that reads

"By 2035, under the C.B.O. projection, payroll and income taxes would claim 25 percent of that family’s paycheck."

I don't think Don Rossito stopped to ask himself what the CBO was projecting when it projected that. I do ask myself, and then answer "price inflation" or call it "what a 2011 dollar will be worth two dozen years from now." If you think that is radically wrong, Dr. Bones, please disregard the following.

My conjectural neoconperson will have understood that what we have here is so-called "bracket creep," a technical business easy to index against. So easy that I suspect the CBO probably *did* make the adjustment, but the scamster preferred not to notice. Left completely in the dark, the NYTC customer could easily guess that real tax-rate increases are involved -- which just goes to prove what relentless thieves we Democrats are, don't you know?

By Heritagitarian and AEIdeological standards, that is a straightforward snow job. Most persons able to profit from "Beat the Press" could probably write it up reasonably misleadin'ly, assuming they believed in the Selfservative Cause -- or were funded vigotrously enough to make lying attractive. But the way Señorito de Doúthat writes it up, it does not mislead, it just sits there and sogs, apart from the laughable phrase "such unprecedented levels of taxation," which may have been in whatever document he was handed to work from.

Instead of adding literary polish and agitation-propaganda pizazz to his talkin’ points, Don Rossito swallows them whole himself, it looks like, and then works them into the fabric of his own pet castle in the air, which is enough like the late M. de Disraëli's "Tory Democracy" to allow me to label it so. The trouble is, I fear, that very few whightists other than the señorito itself are interested in that product line.[*]

Happy days.
--JHM




___
[*] Also unfortunate is that few of the proposed beneficiaries of Douthatian Neodizziiness read _The New York Times_ much even before the gates recently went up around that e-community. All those Blacks and Tans who -- as Don Rossito sincerely believes -- wouldabeen, shouldabeen full-fledged members of The Middle Class (Pat. Pend.) by 2035 but won't be if Keynes and Krugman and Baker prevail are never going to learn that Dr. Douthat champions their cause. They may even never learn that such a neocause once existed.

Not only do I find myself disagreeing with his employers about Douthat's intellectual merit, I do not think he can be pronounced entirely serious about his own most characteristic stuff. Doubtless he *believes* in Douthatian Neodizziness with perfect subjective sincerity, but, for all that, it is rather a good game for him to talk than one to actually buckle down and play.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the laddie’s Party and Ideology are full of good folks who do not themselves entertain any such sentimentality, but can work out that lettin’ him go on in that vein could be profitable for their own private schemes of neoglory. The real movers and shakers at Hooverville and Wingnut City have every reason, it seems to me, to welcome Douthatian Neodizziness on a strict "jam tomorrow" basis -- a "Free Enterprise System" that is always goin’ta blossom out into full-fledged Tory Democracy twenty years in the future is whight up their alley.

If that alley were suddenly to fill up with Bad Poor who have heard this good talk and might do something rash with their pitchforks if too many vicennalia pass with no sign of the _Novus Ordo Sæclorum_, mainstream Hoovervillains could find themselves in something like the difficulties of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. With Don Rossito de Doúthat, though, I daresay they are safe enough: the ’prentice lad is not actually *utterin’* any broomstick spells, he is only, as it were, muttering them to himself _sotto voce_.

Unless you alarm very easily, nothing the least bit alarming is likely to come of that.


11 April 2011

Flim-Flammin’ the Stupid Party



Dear Dr. Bones,

A large number of persons, not all of them politically decent or intellectually respectable, have trouble grasping that the core of the Party of Grant-Hoover-Goldwater-Atwater is a top-down economic conspiracy. Always has been, and one might say "Always will be" in the sense that, if the periphery ever does take over, then the Rovan Empire [1] will in fact have fallen, no matter how much traditional Republicaniac apparatus an’ ‘conservative’ agitprop is brandished by the Odoacers and Theodorics of 1443/2022/5790. [2]

As I keep saying to you, sir, this overturnin’ is not at all likely any time soon. "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice" is a fine tale, but let us not go hog wild and start imagining ScroogeBank an’ Daddy Warbucks sandtrapped by their own Tee Putty -- unless we know for sure we are but spoofing.

We ‘spoof’. Occasionally.

The "Flim-flammin’" of my superscription refers to when somebooby like Party Neocomrade (fifth class) R. X. Douthat [3] infringes our monopoly. As for example:

As Republicans refine their proposals, though, they need to focus more on economic mobility than the Ryan budget does. Public policy is going to be made from inside a fiscal straitjacket for the foreseeable future. But within that straitjacket, Washington can favor policies that enhance working-class opportunity, while ruthlessly paring back those that subsidize the affluent. The goal shouldn’t just be small government, but ... “small-government egalitarianism.” There are elements of this vision woven into the Ryan budget — cuts to farm subsidies, means-testing for Medicare, and promises to go after tax expenditures that primarily benefit the rich. But at least in its initial draft, too much of the budget’s austerity is borne by downscale Americans.


The historical background of so comparatively elegant a _señoritismo_ as this is plain as the jowls on their daddies’ faces. Don Rossito de Doüthat y Podhòretz is, you see, amongst those lucky whight-wingers vouchsafed a vision of what Father Chesterbelloc admirably baptised as the Cross of Dizzy [4] If you were alive at the time and attracted by D’Israëli Minor’s nifty an’ all-but Douthatoid ideoproduct, I believe you were expected to call it "Tory Democracy." Though I cannot help wondering offtopically how Mr. Gladstone would have reacted to being unmasked as a windbag enemy of "small-government egalitarianism." [5]




___
[1] Never forget the semi-official neocatechism of the Kiddie Selfservative Movement, Dr. Bones:

[Q] "... something about [E]nlightenment principles and empiricism."

[A] "That is not the way the world really works anymore. WE are an Empire now, and when WE act, WE create OUR OWN reality. And while you’re studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- WE will act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. WE are history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what WE do.’’


There you have the presidin’ Genius of the _Imperium Rouanum_, Kiddiemaster Karl himself, explainin’ exactly how the racket is supposed to work. Naturally there is a certain amount of discrepancy between that lofty neoïdealism an’ how most of the operatives of Party an’ AEIdeology are likely to be found operatin’ in practice on any particular Thursday afternoon.


[2] Predictions about the future are notoriously risky, but please blame His Holeyness Ronpaulryan I, Arch Hire-arch of Janesville _in partibus supervolandis_, should 2022 prove a bust, rosydawnwise.


[3] The PC5 RXD mechanism is, as I conjecture, "Don Rossito" to the señoritoly or ‘conservative’ ‘intellectual’ community.


[4]
In the lands where Christians were,
F.E. Smith,
In the little lands laid bare,
Smith, O Smith!
Where the Turkish bands are busy
And the Tory name is blessed
Since they hailed the Cross of Dizzy
On the banners from the West!
Men don’t think it half so hard if
Islam burns their kin and kith,
Since a curate lives in Cardiff
Saved by Smith.

(( You don’t need to remember Welsh Antidisestablishmentarianism or care who poor Psmith was to enjoy the fun, sir, but do bear in mind that the bard to whom this High Thought was given considered "the Tory name" nothing to do with his own politics, a point not exactly obvious from across the Atlantic nearly a century later. ))


[5] The CliffsNotes™ version of SGE is easy to guess without looking at the book: we shall have arrived in Beulah Land when the Wicked State does nothin’ at all for anybooby. (( 0 + 0 = 0. Q. E. D. ))

Of course since Don Rossito is by no means pathfindin’ an’ roadmappin’ for Party an’ Ideology caravan, he only barks for ’em, so wherever the Wreckin’ Crew may wash up eventually, it sure won’t be there. Kansas is a possibility, Glaeserstan is not.

(( E. Ludwig von Gläser seems to be a sort of stereotypical H*rv*rd: Big LEW cites him as having discovered that "Americans have become more obese over the past 25 years because they have been consuming more calories."

(( Of course that is worth a Nobel prize, but ¿which one? ¡Economics, Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Peace all alike clamour to dignify the good perfesser! ))

10 April 2011

The End of the World, or, Everbooby's D-fault but yours and mine!



Dear Dr. Bones,

One word of default, and ¡the entire teacup is tossed into tempest!

So much so, that ¡Himself has to make a personal appearance in the peanut gallery!

Once the cocktail-napking schemes of His Holeyness Ronpaulryan I, Arch Hire-arch of Janesville _in partibus transvolandis_, go into the blow, however, I feel a contrarian desire to relax and repeat that old wheeze about the little lady from Kenosha, or maybe Racine, who was told the world would end next week and replied with a smile, "WEll, I am sure we will all get along nicely without it."

Comrade Baker may have been misunderstood by the fool’s son and other peanuts, me not excluded, so take a look for yourself, sir, and let me know whether you think Himself really wants (A) to stiff ALL of Uncle Sam’s creditors, and (B) to do this primarily as a way of dodging SmirkCare, sometimes known as ... lemme see ... as the Roadmap for Foxcuckooland’s Future Act of 20??.

In reverse order, then:

(B) I seem to have laboured in vain the other day to get the teacup to notice that SmirkCare will not even begin for eleven, I believe it is, years. Until then, the Great Medicare Ponzi will still be safe enough to drive a truck through, accordin’ to His Eminence the Roadmaster (and/or "Budget Committee Staff" -- ¡let’s not forget the small people, please!).

Maybe I put the wrong spin on that point when I suggested that some of those who pay for the existence of Roadmaps an’ Roadmasters might be displeased at this unaccountable delay, wonderin’ whether Smirk himself could really be devoted to the core principles of the Party of Grant & Hoover an’ nevertheless miss this golden neoöpportunity to afford them winderful new paths to self-enrichment through the creative financin’ of medicine-related matters, "kidney default swaps," perhaps. Or how about . . . .

But I digress. The thing is, the R4AF neoracket won’t start from anybody till it starts, which means (¿doesn’t it?) that Comrade Baker wants to act today against a Martian invasion fleet that isn’t scheduled to arrive for a decade.

Given that "a week is a long time in poitics," the chances are very high that whatever is done defensively that long in advance may not be much help when THEY finally do land. "Sufficient unto the day is" . . . et cetera.

***

(A) Both Himself and the peanuts take for granted that _Le défaut est indivisible_, which is about as ridiculous an idea as this noneconomist keyboard can imagine. _Au contraire_, once we -- that is to say, once Poor Sam -- decides that he cannot simply pay all his bills, he may be in sad economics straits, but there is a faint silver lining on the moral side, in that now he is in a position to exercise some creative-destructive selectivity, repaying only those creditors who really DESERVE to be repaid.

Congressperson Smirk of the Wisconsin First may be admitted to this discussion as well. Whatever the legalities, an’ whatever the staff smirklings actually included in the current appropriations bill, the general tendence of the Roadmap Crew is plain enough: it is chiefly the Bad Poor who should not get repaid, and that, in turn, translates as "¡Smash Social Security!" and/or "The End of the Social-Democratic Model: ¿Will the Left Respond by Acceptin’ Reality?"

That last is a scribble by a pervert from Trotskyism or thereabouts. M. du Radoszcz has changed sides, but he has not abandoned the _Klassenkampf_ or started pretending to believe the absurd superstition that all contracts are equally sacrosanct. _¿Kto kogo?_ remains firmly in place for Neocomrade R. X. Roadosh, an’ presumably would apply to default too -- "¿Who gets repaid by whom?" is not a question with any general or one-size-fits-all answer.

Most of the G. O. P. Geniuses -- to say nothin’ of their Party base an’ vile -- would not know Social Democracy from a Holeyness from Janesville WI 53545, but that will not interfere with their insistin’ that Sam pay in full -- with interest an’ penalties an’ a generous tip to insure future promptness in the matter of campaign contributions -- when it comes to their own repayment. ScroogeBank once properly taken care of, however, what happens to Cratchit is, of course, Cratchit’s problem an’ nobody else’s: "Thou shalt not create a Moral Hazard."

Though you and I, Dr. Bones, like Comrade Dr. Baker and probably most of the teacuppers, are more with Cratchit and O’Bama than with Uncle Scrooge an’ M. du Radoszcz, nevertheless even the latter do not, if I conjecture rightly, very seriously believe in contractual omnisacrosanctity. I doubt the Geniuses often ask themselves in so many words how much they can get away with when it comes to scroogin’ Citizen Cratchitt an’ the Bad Poor generically. Still, they might as well. Certainly one can predict which way they’ll jump better by assuming they think "What is ours is ours. Only what is yours is defaultable."

This being the case over on the bad side of the aisle, it would be self-defeating for us lieberals and demoncrats to abandon our traditional devotion to "[a] rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project" that comes down the pike. [1]

Happy days.
--JHM

_____
[1] Mr. Madison was not, at least not in 1787-88, one of us, and accordingly lays a little too much emphasis in that famous passage on the supposed equality component of our wickedness and impropriety. In fact, most of us do not altogether mind associating with that former comradess of M. du Radoscz who, serving as a charwoman under the _ancien régime_ once informed her boss, "After the revolution, Mme. la Princesse, everybody will be equal. I’ll go to balls in Paris gowns, and you will scrub floors."

As I have hinted, ‘selectivity’ is a better word to deploy than ‘equality’. Indeed, stick it into the mouth of Publius, and ask yourself whether "a selective division of property" be not an elegant way of referring to graduated income taxes -- and to the dread Death Tax.

Strictly on the Hist. Dept. side: I have no wish to appropriate the Bones of Jemmy and brandish them for the Donkey Cause, that was too far back in the primordial bunk to matter much now. Nevertheless, Madison was probably basking a little too much in emanations from the Hamiltonian pænumbra when he wrote that. It does not hurt to recall that all so-called "Antifederalists" plus presumably quite a lot of the victorious faction as well did not see anything dreadfully improper in the idea that Sam should exercise a little selectivity about paying back the war debt of 1775-1783, much of which had fallen into hands that only Col. Hamilton, Esq., could be altogether proud and happy to shake.

But Clio knows best.