July 10, 2007

Couldn’t Help But Notice (071007)

Filed under: Economy, Environment, MSM Biz/Other Bias, MSM Biz/Other Ignorance, Taxes & Government — TBlumer @ 6:02 am

Headline Bias –

Clinton Slams Bush Over Libby Maneuver

Maneuver? (synonyms: plan, scheme, plot, tactic, trick) “Decision” also has eight letters, and has the unique advantage (to non-agenda-driven people) of being neutral.

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Can’t Happen Fast Enough — “The American scientific establishment is starting to take baby steps away from taking sides in the politics of global warming” (HT e-mailer Larwyn). Too many opportunists in the establishment have embraced globaloney and globalarmism. The presumption of credibility of scientific findings in general has taken a serious hit. It will take a long time to undo to the damage, if it can even be done.

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George Will takes note of some long, long overdue rethinking of FDR’s economic and domestic-policy legacy:

In 1937, during the depression within the Depression, there occurred the steepest drop in industrial production ever recorded. By January 1938 the unemployment rate was back up to 17.4 percent. The war, not the New Deal, defeated the Depression. Franklin Roosevelt’s success was in altering the practice of American politics.

This transformation was actually assisted by the misguided policies — including government-created uncertainties that paralyzed investors — that prolonged the Depression. This seemed to validate the notion that the crisis was permanent, so government must be forever hyperactive.

Will’s column was inspired by Amity Schlaes’s new book about the 1930s, “The Forgotten Man.” Ohio University professor Alonzo Hamby reviewed it at OpinionJournal.com a couple of weeks ago.

2 Comments

  1. Here I thought that it was common knowledge that the sainted FDR’s economic policies crippled the US economy only to be saved by WWII. Just like LBJ’s “Great Society” has crippled American culture and social policy to this day. Between the 2 of them - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid - we have the makings of the U.S.’s greatest future economic threats, apart, of course, from the existence of the Democrat Party - Islamofascism being a distant third.

    Comment by Joe C. — July 10, 2007 @ 10:34 am

  2. #1, would that it were common knowledge. FDR is also the guy who really invented the “permanent campaign.”

    Comment by TBlumer — July 10, 2007 @ 11:13 am

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