Home
Eric Hanneken's Library tagged → View Popular
21 Dec 09
George W. Bush: Biggest Spender Since LBJ
-
Figure 1 shows the average increase in total spending under recent presidents. Bush II was the biggest spender since LBJ. His spending increases were far larger than the three prior presidents.
-
Bush II was instrumental in adding the Medicare drug benefit, which by 2009 was adding more than $60 billion a year to federal spending.
- 2 more annotations...
17 Dec 09
Beyond Pleasantville: Permissiveness wasn't born in the '60s
Jesse Walker reviews <em>The Permissive Society: America, 1941-1965</em>, by Alan Petigny.
-
The Truman and Eisenhower eras, he writes, were
marked by “an unprecedented challenge to traditional moral
restraints.” Petigny isn’t referring to a bohemian subculture or to
rock ’n’ roll rebellion: There are only a few scattered references
to beatniks in this book, and its discussion of pop music devotes
more space to Pat Boone than to Elvis Presley. Petigny is talking
about the great American middle, whose values in areas ranging from
child rearing to religious piety underwent a rapid and radical
change long before the love-ins. -
At one point
Petigny argues that the rise of the disease model of addiction
reflected the rise of permissiveness, since the perspective’s
proponents “viewed the self as essentially innocent, the victim of
a disease process beyond its own control and causation.” But the
idea also suggests a loss of personal responsibility, and a
government’s right to forcibly liberate its subjects from the
habits that enslave them.
07 Dec 09
Diplomacy That Will Live in Infamy
I don't know that Japan would not have attacked Pearl Harbor had Theodore Roosevelt not encouraged their imperial ambitions, but he certainly didn't help.
-
But I always wondered, why did we fight in the Pacific? Yes, there was Pearl Harbor, but why did the Japanese attack us in the first place?
-
In a secret presidential cable to Tokyo, in July 1905, Roosevelt approved the Japanese annexation of Korea and agreed to an “understanding or alliance” among Japan, the United States and Britain “as if the United States were under treaty obligations.” The “as if” was key: Congress was much less interested in North Asia than Roosevelt was, so he came to his agreement with Japan in secret, an unconstitutional act.
- 2 more annotations...
22 Nov 09
The Decline: The Geography of a Recession
A dynamic map of the United States, depicting unemployment by county from January 2007 through September 2009.
18 Nov 09
Ten Reasons Not to Abolish Slavery
. . . and not to try anarchy.
-
Slavery existed for thousands of years, in all sorts of societies and all parts of the world. To imagine human social life without it required an extraordinary effort. Yet, from time to time, eccentrics emerged to oppose it, most of them arguing that slavery is a moral monstrosity and therefore people should get rid of it. Such advocates generally elicited reactions ranging from gentle amusement to harsh scorn and even violent assault.
When people bothered to give reasons for opposing the proposed abolition, they advanced various ideas. Here are ten such ideas I have encountered in my reading.
-
Today these reasons or very similar ones are used by opponents of a different form of abolitionism: the proposal that government as we know it—monopolistic, individually nonconsensual rule by an armed group that demands obedience and payment of taxes—be abolished.
17 Nov 09
Bernanke’s Philosopher: The Fed chairman is portrayed as a follower of John Maynard Keynes, but his real inspiration is Milton Friedman.
It should be noted that Ben Bernanke has gone beyond monetarism (and, I'm pretty sure, Keynes) in endorsing bailouts.
-
While it’s true that the Obama ad-ministration is
pursuing Keynesian fiscal stimulus, the Federal Reserve under
Bernanke has consciously acted on the Friedman/Schwartz insight
that loosening central bank credit is a fundamental tool in
forestalling deflation and depression. Understanding that
monetarism can mean both the management of low inflation in good
times, and the creation of inflation in bad times, has proven too
difficult for most of the media. -
For her part, Schwartz is critical of Bernanke’s application of
her and Friedman’s theories. “You don’t have to lower the
interest rates to the extent that he has in order to increase the
money supply,” she says. “The essential action should be
increasing the money supply. That’s the lesson of the Great
Depression.” - 2 more annotations...
The Tragedy of Health Insurance: How the insurance industry has haplessly abetted the rise of a government-run health care system
-
By conferring a regulatory monopoly on each state, the
McCarran-Ferguson Act ends up protecting insurance companies from
interstate competition—residents may not buy policies from
insurers located outside their state. Because health insurers are
insulated against out-of-state competition, state insurance
commissions and legislatures feel free to impose coverage
mandates that
significantly drive up policy premiums. -
The truth is that companies don’t want competition; they want
government guaranteed profits. Mesmerized by the prospect that an
individual insurance mandate would provide them with tens of
millions of new government-subsidized customers, private health
insurers have allowed themselves to be maneuvered into an
inexorable process that will lead to their destruction.
23 Oct 09
The Cold War Never Ended: Twenty years later, historians still can't figure out why the West won.
Michael Moynihan reviews <em>The Year the Changed the World: The Untold Story Behind the Fall of the Berlin Wall</em>, by Michael Meyer; and <em>The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War</em>, by James Mann.
19 Oct 09
Why Liberals Kill: The left may be pressuring President Obama to exit Afghanistan. But their heroes-from FDR to JFK-promoted U.S. involvement in more wars than all modern GOP presidents combined.
Not to let warmongering conservatives off the hook, but anti-war progressives should be honest with themselves about the actions of their heroes. Thaddeus Russell offers them a textual slap to the face.
-
What too few Americans realize—especially the president’s anti-war supporters, who accuse him of betraying liberal or "progressive" values—is that if he accedes to General Stanley McChrystal's request for more troops in Afghanistan and intensifies the drone attacks in Pakistan, he will follow squarely in the footsteps of the great liberal statesmen he has cited as his role models. Though opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cheered loudly when Obama spoke reverentially in his campaign speeches of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy, those heroes of the president promoted and oversaw U.S. involvement in wars that killed, by great magnitudes, more Americans and foreign civilians than all the modern Republican military operations combined.
-
What should be even more troubling to those who call themselves progressives but oppose the current wars: Obama's motivations for pursuing them are rooted in the central tenet of progressivism, enunciated by his idols, that the American national government is responsible for the reform and uplift of those "we" deem to be living below "our" standards, and that "they" must be protected from their oppressors. Obama's role models followed the logic of that moral calling to the ends of the earth.
Why do we need a central bank?
-
The historical myth is that the Fed was created because laissez-faire in banking produced the periodic panics and crises of the late 19th century. In fact, banking during that period was heavily regulated, particuarly with respect to the production of currency.
-
The Fed is better seen as a typical creature of the Progressive Era. Reformers' beliefs in the power of state-sponsored experts meshed with the self-interest of big bankers who saw a closer relationship with the federal government as a way to enhance their profits, with a central bank as an agreed-upon technocratic solution.
22 Sep 09
New Deal Orgy No Model For Current Binge
-
No serious student of the Depression denies that a partial recovery took place between 1933 and 1937. Yet, just because Washington had unleashed a torrent of spending doesn't mean that the government's spending caused the expansion.
-
After an economic bust, bad investments must be liquidated, so salvageable assets can be reallocated to their most valuable uses. If the government props up failed endeavors through bailouts and other programs, necessary readjustments of the economy's capital structure are slowed or halted, and the toxic mistakes of the past become locked in place, obstructing recovery and hindering the creation of future wealth. The New Deal recovery efforts had exactly these effects, as do current government policies.
- 2 more annotations...
15 Sep 09
What I'm Saying
-
today's proposals for financial reform are just a continuation of the self-defeating policy approaches that got is in trouble. We need to think differently if we want to create effective reforms.
-
Putting people in debt up to their eyeballs ultimately does not promote home ownership. What happened was that subsidized mortgage credit and lenient mortgage credit promoted speculation. In 1995, five percent of mortgage loans were backed by non-owner-occupied houses. By 2005, fifteen percent of mortgage loans were backed by non-owner-occupied houses. Speculation had tripled. Speculation drove up home prices, which made houses less affordable, which made the Hill call for more mortgage subsidies and more leniency, which fueled more speculation, and so on. It seemed like an endless cycle, except that it did end--with a crash.
- 2 more annotations...
14 Sep 09
The New Deal Made Them“Right”
-
By the late 1930s, a handful of prominent liberals
suddenly found themselves on the wrong
side of the New Deal consensus. Much like
Mencken, they joined the “right” almost by
default. For the sin of holding fast to certain
fundamental beliefs, including the quaint
notion that big business and big government
should be kept as far apart as possible, they
were dubbed heartless reactionaries and “economic
royalists.” Yet thanks to their principled
opposition, some of the New Deal’s worst
excesses were brought to light or kept at least
partially in check. -
As Flynn put
it, “Curiously, every American liberal who
had fought monopoly, who had demanded
the enforcement of the anti-trust laws, who
had denied the right of organized business
groups, combinations and trade associations
to rule our economic life, was branded
as a Tory and a reactionary if he continued
to believe these things.”
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Sponsored Links
Ads by Google
Top Contributors
Groups interested in history
Related Lists on Diigo
-
Race, Culture, and Politics in the "New South"
These resources address iss...
Items: 11 | Visits: 318
Created by: David Voelker
-
Genealogy 2.0
A collection of social netw...
Items: 23 | Visits: 302
Created by: Moultrie Creek
-
History
Great history websites to l...
Items: 66 | Visits: 708
Created by: Mrs Brown
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo