I usually refrain from going off on a writer; so forgive this outburst.
I saw this article and read it thinking that some Blue Dog Democrats were joining the Tea Party Movement as a type of place to fit in without losing their Democrat status
-----link-----
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/17/1584333/small-number-of-dem-candidates.html
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What I write about today is how cramming too many people into the Tea Party movement tends to spill the tea. Tends to dilute what’s left to the point of being tastless.
Kinda like the infamous “Big Tent” of the Republicans which by the way is now the size of a pup tent.
I was astounded by what I read. The article was written by Susan Haugh an AP Political Writer. That on the face of it tended to set off a tinkle or two of the warning bell system in my head.
I didn’t completely decide the article was a load of crap written by someone well versed in the lingo and customs of the political class and seemingly unaware of what a conservative is and or what the Tea Party stands for, let alone what the Tea Partiers in the majority are against ------ until I read the following. (bold emphasis mine)
-----quote from article—--
{How can the federal government afford all of that?
Mosler espouses a concept often referred to as "Modern Monetary Theory," whereby the federal government really has no intrinsic financial constraints. Every penny of federal spending, he said, involves simply changing numbers in a bank account at the Federal Reserve, the country's central bank.
"There is no such thing as the federal government running out of money, and Social Security and Medicare cannot go bankrupt because the federal government always makes any payment when it's due by simply marking up numbers in our bank accounts," he said.}
Go ahead Susan, actually go to a Tea Party event sometime and ask everybody whether the federal government can run out of money. Ask them if they agree that SS and Medicare cannot go bankrupt.
Amazing insight into the Tea Party movement Susan. You would help the country more by trying to sell that twaddle to the Chinese so they will stop dumping our bonds. Tell them all about the “Modern Monetary Theory”!
After that I expected to see scathing rebukes from conservatives but you quote only that which calls Mosler an “appealing alternative” and a “Pioneer”!!!!!!
An appealing alternative to whom? Ponzi perhaps or maybe Pelosi; and a pioneer of what??? Treading in the realm of whatever the word is that comes after Trillion???
This whole piece is beautifully filled with such well defined clarity that I’m left speechless as to what it means. Like the gem below.
"traditional Democratic ideal" that the economy works best when everyday people take home enough pay to buy the goods and services they produce”
Wow that ranks right up there with “Save the Whale”
Another marker telling me that Susan may not be so well versed in Tea Party Lingo is that she referred to the seat this Mosler might run for she called Dodd’s seat. Sound familiar? Even without knowing much about the Tea Parties if she had paid the least attention to the Scott Brown thing --- she would have not said Dodd’s seat but the Peoples Seat.
What can I say? Well I’ll say that even Republicans know enough to not call themselves Tea Party Republicans, although I do know of one that did. He’s still paying the price. I guess the reason for the quote- “Tea Party leaders” she quoted for saying nice things about the Tea Party Democrats is that they are such a novelty we overlook their obvious flaws, where we take apart a Republican even showing signs of such crudity and otherwise obnoxious behavior.
What can I say? I’m telling you the truth. As a friend of mine alluded to; when your child gets 3 As and 1 B on their report card, we concentrate on the 1 B. When the neighbor kid comes over with 3 Bs and 1 A we congratulate him on the one A. We do that not so much to be nice but because we don’t much care and want him to go away.
Well I guess that sums up my opinion of Tea Party Democrats – just go away. I’m pissed though at the Tea Party Republicans. They should know better.
Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative
6 comments:
It's an operation fact that the Federal govt can't run out of money, not a theory or philosophy, so if you don't like Social Security, fine, but come up with another reason.
What this means is that the size of govt is a political decision, and not a financial constraint.
Yes, the 'right size' govt. for most conservatives is likely to be a lot smaller than for liberals, but conservatives have to come up with the 'right size' govt. for reasons other than the federal govt (state and local are revenue constrained) running out of money because there is no such thing.
I'm the one pushing the payroll tax holiday where the gov stops taking fica out of our paychecks, which fixes the economy from the bottom up, and not from the top down by showering the banks and insurance companies with trillions.
And we don't need to cut Social Security to do that and send our seniors to the garbage cans to scavenge for food.
Hope this helps!
Warren Mosler
www.moslerforsenate.com
www.moslereconomics.com
Hope that "Tea Party Democrat" this is working for ya.
It may be a fact that with unlimited paper and the other materials money is made up of that those with properly running presses can print an inexhaustable supply of money. The question is what that money is worth?
Because I worry that Social Security may run out of money does not mean I don't like it as you seem to assume. I caution my children not to overspend not because I don't like them. In fact the oposite is true.
I loved the idea of a Tax Holiday way back when Newt Gingrich first put it out there. Lately he has put it out again.
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett put forth HR73 with 53 co sponsors doing just that as a more productive alternative to the Stimulus package. That was in Jan. of 09. People are still talking about it. It is still a good idea.
Your last line about we don't need to cut SS and force seniors to the garbage cans. Well FICA taxes are Social Security Taxes. So you seem conflicted, help me understand is a holiday different than cutting FICA taxes.
Thanks for the reply you were the one that read my blog yesterday.
Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative.
Oh and about shouering Trillions, well let me say I had never heard the term Trillions untill the new President came along.
Well, the Weimar republic in Germany never ran out of money: http://dancingczars.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/weimar-wheelbarrow.jpg
Mugabe's Zimbabwe has plenty of money too: http://www.inflationsurvivalsecrets.com/images%20inflation/zimbabwe%20grocery%20money.jpg
Somehow this doesn't make me feel better, however. In fact, it looks like that "no financial constraints, only political decisions" position hasn't worked out so well where it's been tried.
Excerpt from Rand, "The meaning of money":
"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?
"Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.
"But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.
"To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money."
Thanks Jack
That's why you're in a think tank and I'm a blogger. (LOL)
Rand's "token of honor" and "moral principle" ideas are good as to the underlying value of money. I especially welcome the value she places upon an individual's thoughts. Money is the way people vote on the merits of an individuals ideas.
LD
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