Recent Scribblings

"Americans Should Reject Obama-Romney Foreign Policy" -- Future of Freedom Foundation

"Contraception and the English Language" -- Project to Restore America

Op-ed: The Glaring Contradiction in Anti-Iran Policy

President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have at least one thing in common when it comes to Iran. All are guilty of flagrant self-contradiction.

Read the full op-ed at The Future of Freedom Foundation website.

Op-ed: The Hubris of Romney and Obama

Mitt Romney, whose bid to unseat Barack Obama looks more desperate every day, senses he’s found a weakness in his rival. In a foreign-policy speech the other day, he blasted Obama over the upheaval in the Arab world, saying, “This is a time for a president who will shape events in the Middle East.”

Romney is making two claims: that Obama has failed to shape events in the Middle East and that he, Romney, will succeed.

Could the hubris of a man seeking power be plainer? Does anyone with even a minimum ability to think clearly believe that Romney could “shape events” there?

Read "The Hubris of Romney and Obama."

Romney and the Palestinians

Mitt Romney couldn't have done a better job of showing his utter ignorance about the Palestinians if he had tried. On his recent visit to Israel he explained the economic disparity between Israel and the Palestinians territories by saying "culture makes all the difference." (Occupation? What occupation?) And in a follow-up, undoubtedly ghost-written article in National Review, "Culture Does Matter," he elaborated, "[W]hat exactly accounts for prosperity if not culture?"

 But then--incoherently--he added on Fox News, "I'm not speaking about, did not speak about, the Palestinian culture [!!!], or the decisions made in their economy. That's an interesting topic that deserves scholarly analysis, but I actually didn't address that [!!!]. I certainly don't plan to address that during my campaign. Instead, I will point out, the choices a society makes have a profound impact on the economy and the vitality of that society."

What about a society under occupation and oppression by a foreign power, where every aspect of life--including trade--is under the heel of the Israeli military? Where a fortified wall snakes through the victimized people's land, separating their homes from their farms and cutting their towns off from each other? As the Christian Science Monitor put it, "No mention from the would-be US president of the trade and mobility restrictions that Israel maintains over the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza–restrictions that both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have said for years are key factors in hampering Palestinian economic growth."

Never mind that when they have the chance, Palestinians engage in entrepreneurship and open universities. Can't mention that, though. It would destroy the narrative in which the Palestinians are The Other, alien creatures undeserving of rights and basic dignity--subhuman.

 As if that didn't show enough ignorance, the notorious clandestinely videoed May speech to donors surfaced, in which Romney said, "[T]he Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace."

How ignorant can one man be? Or maybe it isn't ignorance at all.

Romney and the 47 Percent

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. . . . These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. . . . And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

This quote is from the infamous surreptitious video made of Mitt Romney's speech at a fundraiser last spring. What are we to make of it?

The first thing to note is that Romney is typical of the right wing of the ruling elite, which often portrays lower income beneficiaries of the welfare state as a threat to the established order. In this view, they are dependent on government; they wish to remain that way; and they see themselves as victims.

Of course many people who qualify for welfare-state benefits take advantage of them, but it doesn't follow that they want to remain in that postion. Katherine S. Newman, author of Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market and No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City, maintains that low-income people are far more industrious and ambitious, as well as determined to achieve independence, than the public generally believes. (Listen to her EconTalk conversation with Russ Roberts.)

Far less interested in independence from government are the large corporations, banks and otherwise, that exist by virtue of government contracts, guarantees, bailouts, and intellectual "property." The government's security establishment provides untold opportunities for companies to live off the taxpayers, which is much more secure than attempting to achieve market share among consenting consumers. (See Nick Turse's The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.)

Strangely, Romney's speech had nothing to say about that sort of corrupting dependence.

As for feeling like victims, the working poor didn't seem to display this attitude to Newman during her extensive field research. Yet why wouldn't they be justified in regarding themselves as such? The corporate state, with its myriad barriers to competitive economic activity, including self-employment, blocks many routes to prosperity.

By the way, while many lower income people pay no income tax, they do get hit with the regressive payroll (FICA) tax, which until recently helped fund the government's general operations. While formally, employers pay one half of that tax, in fact most or all of the employer's share comes out of workers' pay.

Romney is trying to distract attention with a 14-year-old audio of then-State Senator Barack Obama endorsing a mild form of income "redistribution." Government distribution of wealth, of course, is objectionable, just as government itself is. But Romney to date has had nothing to say about the systematic upward transfer of wealth that the corporate state effects in a variety of way. To offer just two examples: Intellectual "property" law prohibits free competition, creates artificial scarcities and thus extra-market profits, and privatizes value that would have naturally been "socialized" in a freed market. Second, barriers to competition (again, including self-employment) reduce the bidding for labor and hence workers' bargaining power, resulting in lower wages than would otherwise be seen in a freed market. (See these articles by Charles W. Johnson and Gary Chartier.)

It is certainly true that no one is entitled to other people's stuff. That is just as true of the powerful and well-connected business interests that through government intervention amass great wealth at the expense of the rest of us.

When Romney begins talking about that sort of "redistribution of wealth" I will start to take him seriously.

The Palestine Romney Doesn’t Know

Amazingly, it came from the Washington Post, but this op-ed by Zahi Khouri, "The Palestine Romney doesn’t know," is very much worth reading.

Latest Scribblings

“Romney and Bain Capital”

“TGIF: Government Beneficence and Other Fairy Tales”

Op-ed: Obama, bin Laden, and Mitt

The partisan squabbling over the killing of Osama bin Laden is a typical election-year distraction, effectively squelching discussion of more important matters one year after the execution of the al-Qaeda chief executive.

Aided by cable-TV talking heads, Americans are spending too much time speculating over whether presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney would have given the order to get bin Laden, and also issuing paeans to President Obama’s “courage.” (We have a strange notion of courage. Did Obama risk his own life? Of course not. He was safe in the White House Situation Room. Perhaps he “risked” his political career, but even that isn’t certain. A failed operation might have won him sympathy for a good try. On the other hand, the men under his command were ordered to risk their lives and the lives of others.)

While the commentators are engaged in trivialities, big foreign-policy questions are ignored.

Read “Obama, bin Laden, and Mitt.”

Op-ed: An Echo, Not a Choice

My take on Mitt Romney and the upcoming election.

With Mitt Romney’s sweep of Tuesday’s primaries, he will almost certainly be President Barack Obama’s Republican opponent in November. Romney has vowed to make the economy the chief issue against Obama, and he is sure to portray the president as an enemy of free enterprise in order to draw a contrast with himself. How fit is Romney’s claim to be a champion of economic freedom?

TGIF: Variations on a Corporatist Theme

The latest TGIF focuses on the common corporatist philosophy held by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Read it here.

Op-ed: Obama Administration “Brainwashes” Public on Afghanistan

Obama, like his predecessor, systematically lies to the American people about the war. But don’t expect the Republican nominee (unless it’s Ron Paul) to expose the deceit.

Read the full op-ed here.

No Bain, No Pain?

I submit that judging Bain Capital through the fog of corporate statism is not easy. But a general suspicion is probably in order.

Private Equity and Creative Destruction

The private-equity controversy raging around Mitt Romney is complicated in part because of corporatist interventions. But it misses the point to say, as some have, that Bain Capital wasn't trying to create jobs; rather it was trying to make money for its investors. For that just raises the question: How does one make money for investors? Theoretically the answer is: ultimately by creating value for consumers. That could require reducing the use of labor and resources in one line of production in order to free them for another line in which consumers have a more intense demand. We live in a world of scarcity.

Of course, I’ve only scratched the surface.

I’m Talking about You, Romney

Any presidential candidate who threatens to attack Iran if elected is a monster. Nothing could be more reckless or despicable than to promise to carry out a policy that would kill thousands of innocent people, set the Middle East afire, and invite retaliation against Americans—all in an effort to gain political power by showing how tough he can talk. Romney did this the other night, showing what an evil man he is.

I suppose we’ll hear the same bullshit from Gingrich, Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and Santorum if we haven't already. What a contemptible bunch of reprobates. I’m glad Ron Paul is there to provide some rationality.