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1/6/2009
Burri: Forget the bailout and please everyone

It isn't often that a politician can please both the far Right and the far Left at the same time, but President-elect Barack Obama will have that chance the moment he takes office.

He won't take it, but he'll have it.

It was Obama who – regarding the environment, energy policy, U.S. leadership on alternative fuels and global warming – said last May: "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK."

The way he chose to convey that point was…well, we could put it down to an inexperienced politician sticking his foot in his mouth, except that his vastly more experienced Vice President-elect does that sort of thing all the time.

Still, his point isn't all bad: If we're serious about those subjects (or, at least, the liberal interpretation of them), we'll have to accept some limits on our own consumption.

That won't please the far Right, of course. Keep reading.

Given Obama's statement, he and his allies ought to be just tickled about the current economic unpleasantness …that is, unpleasantness from my point of view. And yours. And that of anybody who works for GM, or another car company, or retail, or realty, or finance…

But to the environmentalist, consumption-is-bad, Americans-are-wasteful-gluttons crowd, this is a good thing. Or it ought to be.

Which brings us to the seemingly endless calls for federal money. Bailouts. Stimuli. Help. The financial markets. Automakers. Homeowners. Newspapers. States.

Dumping buckets of federal money into whatever markets or non-markets need/want it will, the logic goes, keep more people employed, earning paychecks, spending their money. This will, the logic goes, help our economy recover more quickly.

That won’t please the far – or even the middle – Right, either. Vastly greater government spending; government debt to support that spending; government interference in private business; increased government influence over private business. These are not good things.

It doesn't please the Left, either, although their philosophy of bigger-better-stronger government is well-served when everybody and their Governor are begging Congress for a few more billion.

No, any real enviro-Leftist worth the label should find the idea of government economic "stimuli" quite disturbing: Americans have finally toned down the consumption! Less waste, less fuel, less pollution, more squirrels!

How can a liberal, Democrat government – a liberal, Democrat president – even think about trying to change that?

Thus, Obama could please both sides by killing the bailouts on Day One.

He won't, of course. Politicians can't see a problem and simply say “live with it.” Not even sympathetically. Government has to do something, and so they – and Obama – will. He'll protect himself from accusations of "not caring" by spending as much money as necessary, whether we have it or not.

In the end, of course, this will be clever of him…from a Leftist point of view. All these bailouts and stimuli will expand government spending and government power. It will expand public expectations of the government's responsibility to protect us from all harm.

Not to mention, this greater government interference – followed by the taxes required to finance that interference – will do much to hold our economy down, thus giving the enviro-Leftists at least some of what they want.

So while he has the opportunity to please both sides, he won't take it. Political expedience, at least, will stop him. If he's thinking far enough ahead, the drive to socialism will stop him, too.

Lance Burri is a contributor to the Badger Blog Alliance and occasionally blogs at his own site as well.

COMMENTS

You are right. Let us do SOMETHING, even if it is wrong. My own congressman Kind points out that our real debt is at least $56 Trillion, yet he voted to put us another trillion or so upside down last year, and promises about that same amount this year. Two faced? Ignorant? Willing to have us pay in the long run for our short term folly? I do not know, let the readers decide. But what is virtually certain is that the bailout will not work, precisely because MORE assets will be wasted to buy votes, both in the public and the private sector. Unless we are willing to rid our economy of the poison of the de facto bankrupt companies, bailing them out will only prolong the problem.

Oh sure, you might see a blip of economic activity. But given the $8 Trillions created into existence recently by the Federal Reserve, once the spending starts, there is the real possibility of price inflation like has not been seen in our lifetimes. Add to that if the international community looses any more faith in our dollar, they will not only stop buying our debt, but repatriate our petrodollars and Treasury note dollars, making matters worse.

You kind of hint at a bit of schizophrenia on the part of the left. We hate big industrialists, but are not only willing to forgive their folly (and that of the UAW) in order to save our constituency, the Auto workers, who with their demands, supported by the threat of force from government, helped to kill the golden goose.

So are we willing to trade a rough spot in the road for the next couple years for a generation of prosperity? It does not look as if...

Talk about the me too, NOW! generation....

Ken Van Doren (Tue Jan 06 09:03:23 2009)

Even though you've detailed pieces of a solution in various comments on other days, it's still a time to ask - what's the solution Ken? How is the U.S. going to dig ourselves out of this mess? But closer to home... are there enough taxpayers who agree we must pay more taxes - or enough legislators with the courage to control spending and educate voters - or will we have smoke and mirrors once again? From where you sit, what can - no, must - the ordinary Joe do?

Jo (Tue Jan 06 09:12:25)

HMMMMM...I wonder where I fit in. Certainly not on the Left, As I am one of the "crazy" people that supported Ron Paul.

On the other hand, I do emphatically believe that consumption (vs "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without") IS bad, and Americans ARE wasteful gluttons. Just think--what was the old name for TB? CONSUMPTION.

It goes back to Keynes, who helped start this mess (buy, buy, buy as a basis for "economy"). We went from being a pretty self-sufficient nation in the 1800s, to a self-destructive debt-ridden nanny state filled with whiners.

The solution is to LET THE MARKET CORRECT ITSELF. That is, do NOT repeat the same mistakes FDR made, which then resulted in The Great Depression, instead of a market correction that would maybe have taken 2-3 years at the most. People generally don't know that there were other "depressions" in the 1920s, and even earlier (they called them Panics)that lasted a few months to a year, but they weren't inflamed by government meddling a la FDR.

All this "bailout" is going to do is to fuel hyperinflation. There is only a certain amount of wealth a country has, and their money ought to reflect that wealth. However, when the printing presses are churning out more and more Monopoly money, while the amount of wealth remains the same, each one of those pieces of paper will represent less and less of the actual wealth.

So the solution is REDUCE government regulations, thus encouraging small start-ups. FORGET any "bailout"--no use trying to revive something that's already dead; (to use a hospital term, call the code already!!!). INVEST in non-car infrastructure--like railroads.

And STOP any government handouts (subsidies) for "alternative" fuels, in the vain hopes that we'll somehow be able to keep the car-based model. These (e.g. corn) in reality use far more fossil fuels--diesel for tractors, natural gas for artificial fertilizers, plus fuel to ship the stuff where it needs to go, and even more fuel to process it into ethanol, not to mention the HUGE water consumption that the ethanol plants use, in addition to the knock-on effect of higher food prices.

GIVE ME A BREAK. We cannot expect to keep on living our car-and-truck-based lifestyles, with peak oil being reached (I believe) in 2006! So it behooves us as a nation to develop more sustainable lifestyles, instead of expecting megafarms to keep on shipping their stuff 1000s of miles.

So I guess the difference between me and a liberal is that they may believe the government will need to ration resources, whereas I believe the resources will ration themselves. Anyone who is really serious about "what to do" should check out "Austrian school of economics" on the web. And DON'T believe the lies of Keynes.

emily matthews (Tue Jan 06 18:44:05 2009)

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