Comments Posted By Foobarista
Displaying 41 To 50 Of 63 Comments
THE ENDURING POPULARITY OF STAR TREK
The thing I liked about the Star Trek universe was the idea of "The Final Frontier" - which was a clear allusion to the original series as basically a space Western, where "Society" and its institutions are far away and the best diplomat is a fully activated phaser bank, so you trust in your people and your wits to get things done.
This is what appeals to more libertarian-minded types about the show, even if the Federation itself sounds like a socialist utopia. And while there's supposedly "no money", they do often talk about "credits", and there are numerous traders and such in the universe.
Deep Space 9, in particular, was very much a Western, basically a fortress on the edge of Indian country.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 8.05.2009 @ 13:33
DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT MODERATES: 1) MODERATES HAVE NO PRINCIPLES
This is the game-theoretic problem for political moderates. If one side is open to compromise, and the other is not, the stubborn side wins. Often, all it takes is the appearance of "listening" (and ignoring as far as policy goes).
This is also why dictatorships often out-negotiate democracies. The dictator has no internal pressure to compromise, and often powerful incentives not to, while the democracy and its leaders really want "a deal" to make the problem "go away".
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 6.05.2009 @ 17:47
There's a difference between "sounding" reasonable and "being" reasonable. Obama is surprisingly good at the former.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 6.05.2009 @ 15:30
Even though I'm generally moderately inclined, one danger for "moderates" is a desire to appear "reasonable". This gives those who have the ability to define "reasonableness" great power.
One thing I'll concede to lefties is their notions that words and ideas are malleable, and can be hammered into right shapes if you work hard enough. The whole idea of "moderation" and "reasonableness" are extremely malleable, given that it is hugely context-sensitive. There's a sense of "splitting the difference" that concedes the field to the person defining "reasonableness".
Obama understands this - he always sounds reasonable and takes great pains to avoid sounding like a leftie fanatic, and works hard to keep a distance from the weird left.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 6.05.2009 @ 12:16
I think you'd be better off walking past these "meta-arguments" and putting specific policy suggestions on the table. One thing I've always been hugely disappointed with the right blogworld is its love of meta-arguments and its lack of policy specifics. I've tried some discussion of this sort of thing on my pathetic little blog - and in blog comments - but much of the blogworld is devoted to bashing the other guy and "criticism". Critics are important, but they no staying power without viable alternatives.
Things that are interesting:
1. If you were God-Emperor, what would you do with social security, Medicare, etc? How about health care generally?
2. If President Moran had a willing Congress for an afternoon, how would you handle the banks, foreclosures, etc?
3. How about tax policy? Personally, I'm becoming more of a fan of the "Fair Tax" or something like it, because the sheer complexity of the tax code allows for a dangerous level of opacity and "free-lunch-ism". For my part, I believe taxes should be visible, at least partially paid by everyone, and should smack you upside the head whenever you pay them, and be not buried in the price of stuff (or an "off-balance-sheet" element of your compensation package, as is half of SS and Medicare).Things that arent:
1. Any discussion of "RINOs". Purists are so boring.
2. Pretty much any gay-related social-con issue that will be dead in a decade anyway, along with most of the people who care about them.
3. For "concern troll" lefties, accusations of hypocrisy of the "where were you when Bush did this or that" variety. I thought being progressive meant focusing on the future! Also, the "you" you're addressing may actually agree with you about Bush and the un-lamented Republican Congress, but likely opposes the "solution" tabled by Obama as well.Things that are marginally interesting and a bit painful, but probably need discussion:
1. How do you sell conservative principles to kids on the coasts who are social liberals, but often have quite libertarian instincts?
2. How do you fight free-lunchism?
3. What to do with so-con concerns? Part of the reason de-federalism is appealing to many is it's a way to acknowledge the reality that anti-gay and pro-life stuff won't get done at the national level, especially at the Constitutional level where it will outlast a particular President's executive orders. So, you de-federalize and let local communities be as so-con as they want to be.
4. What about immigration, both legal and illegal? It ain't going away, and "fences and enforcement" won't help much.
I often think we should steal an idea from the UK and have a "shadow cabinet" where we talk about alternatives and policy ideas that are temporal. The discussion needs to be somewhat detailed, but not excessively think-tankey. Talking about policy isn't quite as fun as ranting about the latest leftie outrage, but someone's got to do it, and putting ideas on the table is the only way to show that the left-liberal approach isn't the only approach to national concerns.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 5.05.2009 @ 12:30
OBAMA HASN'T SHEATHED HIS SWORD OF FEAR QUITE YET
Basically, a system that allows bad ideas to be found out and permitted to fail, instead of being "rewarded" with more funding. Also, in general, I'd prefer a system with fewer, but better paid and more qualified, civil servants.
In general, the centralized command&control management model used by government is something that hasn't been used in other parts of our system for many years, and hoping that somehow it'll somehow work there when it's been ditched everywhere else but government is silly. Even our democratic institutions are out of scale and can't possibly provide accountability to the citizens for the vast number of things government is supposed to do.
Modernizing how government is managed is as important as figuring out what it should and shouldn't do.
I'd also abolish civil-service defined-benefit pensions. We shouldn't have lifers who've spent their entire working lives in government, who are professionally rewarded by rocking the boat as little as possible for X years. People should be able to move in and out of government and private-sector work so ideas move in both directions.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 25.03.2009 @ 17:37
Most of the money will be wasted. Even "infrastructure" spending will be spent badly, on pork-barrel projects, using monstrously expensive, politically connected contractors. Spending on education will disappear in a black hole of bureaucracy as it always does.
The problem is government needs to be fundamentally restructured. But Obama won't do it - he's never seen a collection of bureaucrats he didn't coddle.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 25.03.2009 @ 14:05
One thing: when Obama says "invest" or "investments", he means taxes, or at least the government spending money on stuff. He does not mean putting money to work in the private economy. He consistently uses "invest" and "investment" in speeches to refer to government activity - as is common among leftie policy types - and I've never seen a context where he means "buy a stock" or "fund a business startup" when he says "invest".
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 25.03.2009 @ 10:50
ON FAILURE - OBAMA'S AND AMERICA'S
Mike: business isn't paying to Obama's current tax proposals, but the fact that his math doesn't work. Nobody with any sense thinks that the "Clinton tax restoration" is the end of the Obamataxes. He promised the sun, the moon, and the stars during his campaign, and the top rate increase doesn't come close to paying for it.
And as for energy, how does an aluminum smelter conserve energy? Manufacturing, in particular, is extremely energy-intensive - and competes in a world market where competitors will have access to cheaper energy. If the business is already energy-intensive, it is already doing a lot to save energy in its manufacturing processes. But so are its competitors, so the "net net" is higher prices equals "we leave".
Frankly, I actually agree that some sort of energy tax to force conservation may be a good idea. But it should be a retail tax, not a "carbon trading" shell game, which will only make Congresscritters rich and "hides the ball" on the fact that the carbon trading regime is actually a sales tax. (Personally, I'm not opposed to a gas tax with a revenue-neutral offset of the payroll tax.)
As for other taxes, the problem as I mention above is Obama's numbers don't add up. The "Clinton tax level restoration" won't pay for what he wants to do - and he even says so (see his speeches about the health care "down payment"). Given that, the only thing we have to go by is Obama's punitive attitude toward strivers shown repeatedly in his speeches and policies, which equals massive and unknown taxes down the road.
In short, business doesn't trust Obama any more than anti-war lefties trusted Bush. And unlike anti-war lefties, business gets to "vote" by going elsewhere or choosing to not do business.
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 8.03.2009 @ 14:33
I'm not so much concerned with Obama himself, but that his policies will actually fail. He wants to do the following:
1. Make energy massively more expensive.
2. Make it far easier to unionize companies.
3. Raise taxes on small business.And he wants to do this in the teeth of an emerging worldwide depression. The logical response to these policies will be the following:
1. Raising the price of energy will drive energy-intensive businesses out of the country, raising unemployment - as similar policies have already done in Europe. Other businesses will raise their prices and pass these costs onto consumers.
2. A few high-end businesses with healthy margins will allow workers to unionize, while others will simply close or hire more illegal workers. Look for the market in low-skilled workers to be even more dominated by off-the-books Mexican labor than it already is. Unions were important and useful 75 years ago, but today they dominate two "industries": Detroit and government, particularly local government. Both are in severe trouble.
3. A deep recession is actually a good time to start a business. Costs are lower, it's easier to hire good people, and the business will grow as the economy recovers. But starting a business is hard and scary, and raising taxes on the money you'll earn if you're business is ultimately successful means you're less likely to start up a business.
One final point is a whole lot of Obama's arguments are basically punitive: these rich people did great under Bush, now is our time to nail them to help the deserving. The problem with this argument is the rich tomorrow won't be the same people as the rich yesterday. Also, the "super-rich" already have their money - messing with the income tax code won't change that, which is why the super-rich tend to care less about this sort of thing than the "strivers", who hope to make money or have solid incomes but not a lot of assets.
As to your question of failure, I don't "hope Obama fails". I *know* he'll fail. If you drop a rock, it falls to the earth. If you have anti-business policies, business will leave.
Look at Michigan or California. They both have implemented a lot of the sorts of policies Obama wants to do nationwide. Would you start up a new labor-intensive business in either place if your business had a choice in location?
Comment Posted By Foobarista On 8.03.2009 @ 13:54
