Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

LarryM — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:19:13 -0000

I'm just curious why a libertarian is criticizing the adminstration with not doing more to stem the financial crisis. i mean, isn't treasury's cautious path exactly what a fan of limited goverment would like to see?

I'm not being snarky here; as someone who increasingly buys into the libertarian critique of the state (though not always buying into into some of the magical thinking about the efficiacy of the "free' market), I have some sympathy for the POV that the administration should be particularly cautious about further interventions into the mess. But whether from convinction or circumstance, isn't that just what the adminstration has been doing?

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

TWylite — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:34:05 -0000

The truck has crashed, the window is smashed, the beast is dead, and the point is taken. But where is the olive tree? Over there in a box. The clarity is devastating.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 17:06:56 -0000

So far that's a good description of this administration: laugh or cry.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:47:03 -0000

Hoover screwed up by interfering and FDR took it to new levels by interfering more. The Great Depression was as 'great' as it was because of FDR's misguided policies:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/po...

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

odograph — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:46:41 -0000

All I can do is chuckle at that.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:44:56 -0000

I'm not closely aligned with him on anything. However, he claims there is a banking crisis that is paramount to the economy and yet he is off squawking about education, healthcare, and everything else under the sun.

His administration should be clear about what they are doing when it comes to banks. If they are waiting for the rest of Q1 to unfold, then say that. If they don't have a clue, then say that. All the uncertainty has been causing big problems.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

odograph — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:40:44 -0000

Are you waving Hoover's boney hand at us?

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:40:05 -0000

Wow, no.

Will's liberaltarian project is destined to fail because liberals are like retarded 3 year olds. They should not be taken seriously.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

odograph — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 13:12:03 -0000

What's your point then, that Obama should "look busy" on this?

OH! It's that he shouldn't spend any time on things you are less closely aligned with him on!

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

alphie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:27:35 -0000

Uknow,

Do you also believe the government was behind 9/11?

Just checking...

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:23:11 -0000

Increasing the debt and deficit to unprecedented levels is nonsensical to complain about?

Why don't you go dig up FDR's skeleton and go play with it, little boy?

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:20:57 -0000

No, it doesn't.

It says focus on the one thing you (as in Obama) claim is important. As opposed to claiming totally unrelated things are all important.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:18:47 -0000

You really are clueless.

Do you deny the government was encouraging the housing bubble?

You can usually tell the democrats by how much they lie (online and off). Alphie, you have good company with Madoff and Standford (two big-time democrats).

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

alphie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:24:04 -0000

I remember when Rove & Co. first floated that lie and thought, "nobody, not even the Republican base, is dumb enough to believe that lie."

Color me surprised.

The "conservative" movement in this country has turned into a freak show reality program where the wealthy folks who run it compete to see which of them can get you guys to swallow the weirdest "facts."

Remember when your leader Rush tried to push the "it's Obama's recession" meme back in November and got laughed at even by the gullible right?

There may be hope for you guys yet.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

odograph — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:52:02 -0000

Doesn't that presume an "easy fix" that the President is avoiding? Have China, England, Japan, Germany got their easy fixes in place?

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

alphie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:05:02 -0000

Haha, uknow.

Stock market up three days in a row.

If this continues, U, Will and the other squealers will be known as shrill chicken littles.

Try a little optimism instead of always looking for something nonsensical to complain about.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:17:56 -0000

The uncertainty is the big killer. No one is going to play a game where they don't know the rules or the rules can change at any second.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:16:30 -0000

They use their racist magic powers.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:15:16 -0000

...but, that's like math, and that's like hard for liberals.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:15:02 -0000

You are so deep in the kool-aid.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:10:48 -0000

Will's point seems pretty obvious. If you are going to run around and 'do things', why don't you do the one thing that actually might matter? As opposed to the other 100 things which can wait or don't matter at all.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

uknowbetter — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:08:59 -0000

1999 NYT article on the crazy 'free market capitalists' Bill Clinton, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac:
http://www.thedonovan.com/a...

Keep lying if you want to, alphie, about the free market when government intervention in the market caused the crisis, but don't expect people with brains to believe you.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

no idea what is going on — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:11:42 -0000

At a minimum, they could be clear about what the new rules are going to be, or when we might learn of them. The dithering issue is that waiting with the idea that something is going to change adds unnecessary uncertainty, not that doing nothing and saying that the rules are not going to change is, in itself, a bad thing.

If they really are going to let the insolvent institutions fail, then fair enough. Make the rule that when the capital ratio is low enough for any bank, then that bank goes into bankruptcy and be clear about what the rule is. If you are going to bail out, then be clear, and explain exactly how they will be bailed out. It is the policy uncertainty that is the bad news here.

But maybe the government doing nothing is the let them fail decision. I hope so, but my cynical side says that they are milking the crisis for more Naomi Klein politics.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

alphie — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 18:09:37 -0000

Will and his kind have yet to offer up any substantial, fact-based criticism of Obama, knb.

It's been more on the level of junior-high school girls deciding which bands they like and which they don't like, as opposed to criticizing Bush's flagrant and obvious violations of the Constitution.

Fortunately, the American public seems to be much more mature than Obama's critics.

Re: Hello? Excuse Me! Brrrring… Anybody Home?

bbartlog — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:17:36 -0000

Efforts to revive economic activity and to stabilise the financial system that are clearly indispensable on the basis of any economic analysis

This is a laugh. 'Quick, let's pretend we're unanimous on this point and hope no one notices it's false!'. Has he forgotten the anti-stimulus ad that Cato took out? Signed by I forget how many economists?
And in any case, I can find you plenty of Austrian economists who will tell you that the stimulus and the bailouts are not 'indispensable' nor even desirable. The author seems to take it for granted that (as the debate said) 'everyone is a Keynesian now', and that's clearly not the case.