Random Thoughts...

 For what it's worth, some comments on items in the news...

1) Attorney General Eric Holder is either incompetent or a liar, or both. He testified last spring that he had first heard about operation Fast & Furious "a few weeks" earlier. We now know that he was told about it at least as early as summer of 2010. He should be fired.  But he won't be. No way Obama will fire a black Attorney General.

2) Can anyone explain how Obama's newly proposed "jobs bill" is anything other than Stimulus 2? More spending of money we don't have, more spending on infrastructure, more central planning. Wasn't Stimulus 1 supposed to fund infrastructure, aka "shovel ready projects"? Shovel ready projects have been replaced by projects that are "ready to go", which is nothing more than rhetorical sleight of hand intended to the ignorant masses. Obama recently mocked Republicans for proposing the same old ideas that, he says, don't work. No word from the White House on whether he grasped the irony.

He also said recently that there are 153 bridges in the country that are so dilapidated they are dangerous, so we must pass his bill. But he didn't tell us which bridges we should avoid. If these bridges actually exist, shouldn't he have named them? You know, in the interest of public safety?

3) Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) took to the Senate floor the other day to tell the public not to bank with Bank of America. BofA apparently aroused Durbin's ire by deciding to charge customers a $5 per month fee to use their debit cards. Bastards! What Durbin failed to mention is why BofA is charging the fee. Durbin himself included an amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that limited the amount banks could charge retailers for accepting debit cards. Anyone who is reasonably familiar with how business works could have told Durbin that when government passes a law that reduces income, businesses will look for ways to recoup the loss. But Durbin is shocked that BofA acted in its own best interests and the interests of its shareholders. Durbin is a poster child for what happens to a politician after years of spending other people's money.

4) The Washington Post's attempt to destroy Rick Perry is both despicable and predictable. The Perry family leased the property, with a rock that had the word "Niggerhead" on it, for the purpose of hunting. The Perrys evidently sprayed paint over the offensive word and turned the rock over. This doesn't sound like the action of a racist, but the Post used unnamed sources and innuendo to smear Perry.

5) Some leading Democrats and liberal media pundits are quite enamored of the protesters known as Occupy Wall Street. These protesters are essentially a bunch of anti-capitalist, anti-profit, anti-business dimwits who think the minimum wage should be $20 per hour, that people have a "right" to a "living wage" regardless of employment status, and that all debt, of every type, should be erased. In other words, they are taking the lessons they learned from their college professors and trying to force their implementation. A self-avowed communist and former Obama czar, Van Jones, is a leading figure in the movement. But these knuckleheads are being cheered by so-called progressives. Have they learned nothing from history?

By comparison with the Tea Party movement, Occupy Wall Street is an incoherent mob. Some of these protesters are actually comparing themselves to the original Boston Tea Party, evidently unaware that Paul Revere and others in 1773 were protesting against higher taxes and intrusive government, concepts that are appalling to modern day redistributionists.

6) After throwing away over $500 million on loan guarantees to Solyndra, the administration is not only unapologetic, it is spending an additional $6 billion on green energy companies. The administration continues to believe that it is better equipped to determine the best use of capital than the private sector. This is the height of hubris. I have heard many on the left defend the administration's subsidizing of solar energy on the basis that China is pouring money into it and we can't get left behind. Their argument boils down to this: since the Chinese government is stupid enough to subsidize an energy source that can't survive on its own in a free market, we should be just as stupid. The "China does it" crowd also fails to mention that China is also pursuing all sources of energy, including coal and oil, which environmentalists in the U.S. are doing everything in their power to curtail. If we're going to use China as a shining example, let's at least try to follow their lead when they do something smart.

7) Speaking of China, some in Congress, primarily Democrats, think it's a good idea to punish the ChiComs for manipulating their currency. China may in fact be doing that, but it not clear that, on net, it does more harm to us than it does to them. In either event, slapping tariffs on Chinese goods will likely lead to retaliatory tariffs on our goods, aka, a trade war. Does Smoot-Hawley ring a bell?

Those who promote such measures are generally those who also bemoan our trade deficits. But trade deficits are as poorly understood by politicians as most other economic concepts. I have commented in the past about the fact that accounting for trade must consider two different elements, the current account and the capital account. When we hear about deficits, the reference is to the current account. But these deficits are offset by capital account surpluses. Google "cafe hayek trade deficts" for more on this. When considered in its entirety, trade is always, by definition, balanced. Viewed another way, if trade (or current account) surpluses are so desirable, why did we have surpluses in all but one year (1936) of the Great Depression? We have had these trade deficits every year since 1976. If they are as awful as we hear, how have we survived? The fact is that data indicates a strong correlation between expanding trade deficits and economic growth. Yet we constantly hear politicians bray that something must be done about these horrible things. And over such specious claims and worries about China's currency, some are willing to enter a trade war, which would be truly disastrous.