• A note to both campaigns:
• Weekend Plans (updated x3)
• The failed public relations campaign of Capitalism and Capitalists
• The future of Sarah Palin

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October 26, 2008

A note to both campaigns:

Update your economic talking points, because gasoline is now about a penny cheaper than it was a year ago...

Just sayin'.

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October 21, 2008

Weekend Plans (updated x3)

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October 11, 2008

The failed public relations campaign of Capitalism and Capitalists

Capitalism is taking quite a beating lately, and the course and future of capitalism may well be defined by how well current government actions are seen to work in stabilizing the economy and the investments, homes, and jobs of individuals across the USA and around the world. It doesn’t matter whether capitalism is truly at fault. What matters most is whether capitalism gets the blame in the political arena and in the eyes of the general public. You can gnash your teeth all you like about how the general public is ignorant of the Truth, but that by itself will have no influence on the regulations and laws that emerge to “protect” us all from the free markets in the future.

The fact is that free-market capitalism has had a terrible PR campaign for years, and its legacy has largely been defined by its detractors.

Consider the galling fact that the USA is hearing “I told you so” from Latin American dictators:

David Rothkopf, who headed the International Trade Administration under President Clinton, says [Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, and Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa ] can now cite U.S. government intervention in the economy to justify their policies.

Notes NPR’s Tom Gjelten:

The policies pursued by Chavez in Venezuela have discouraged private investment and may yet prove disastrous. But other Latin governments that have taken more moderate steps away from free-market orthodoxy are doing relatively well.

Brazil, Chile and Ecuador experienced sharp financial crises in the 1980s and '90s, and in response, they implemented policies to bring more stability to their economies… The lesson being that markets left entirely on their own don't always work in a country's best interests.

Of course, free markets are not supposed to work in a country’s best interests. They are ignorant of nations. Markets only serve buyers and sellers. When we elevate the collective national economy to a greater importance than the free market, we no longer have a free market to laud or blame. But that only matters if we are all being honest with one another. And if we were being honest with one another, why would be elevate the collective national economy to a greater importance than the free market?

Rothkopf:

"I think it's quite possible that over the next 25 years, the prescriptions for reform you see are going to have a bigger government component, perhaps a bigger regulatory component on the global stage, as opposed to the national stage"

Oh, capitalism, what brought you to this lowly state? That question is best answered by Ayn Rand, who knew all along that the morality of an economic system will never be defended so long as its practitioners care more about practicing it than in defending its intellectual purity:

There is a fundamental difference between our approach and that of capitalism's classical defenders and modern apologists. With very few exceptions, they are responsible - by defeault - for capitalism's destruction. The default consisted of their inability or unwillingness to fight the battle where it had to be fought: on moral-philosophical grounds.

No politico-economic system in history has ever proved its value so eloquently or has benefited mankind so greatly as capitalism - and none has ever been attacked so savagely, viciously, and blindly. The flood of misinformation, misrepresentation, distortion, and outright falsehood about capitalism is such that the young people of today (1970 -ed) have no idea (and virtually no way of discovering any idea) of its actual nature...

By their silence... by their evasion of the clash between capitalism and altruism - it is capitalism's alleged champions who are responsible for the fact that capitalism is being destroyed without a hearing, without a trial, without any public knowledge of its principles, its nature, its history, or its moral meaning.

(This is from the introduction to Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.)

In our new era of global markets, will nationalistic economics be subverted in favor of global economics? Perhaps. But in that case, the markets are not serving the buyer and the seller. They're serving political purposes. I guess if you trust that, you should be happy with the direction we're heading.

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October 2, 2008

The future of Sarah Palin

It just occurred to me that if McCain is elected, Sarah Palin would be the President of the Senate, where she would preside over Barak Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton.

For sheer entertainment purposes, I don't see how I can vote against that scenario.

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