Sunday, February 27, 2011

MUSTANG has written an amazing piece....please don't miss it...click HERE.
z

15 comments:

Ducky's here said...

Ah, more on borrowing. Now I say the right isn't being quite honest about their objections.

First, the deficit really doesn't matter so much as the level of debt and the cost of carrying debt.

Second, Obama has a deficit of about 1o0% of GDP, yes, too high, but the carrying cost is only around 1%.

Third, when St. Ronnie Raygun was generating a deficit of 8% of GDP, also high, and a carrying cost over 10% there was silence from the right.

So, it would be nice if you were able to enter into an unbiased discussion of this issue but that ain't going to happen.
It's going to be more aphorisms about "freedom" (big word, lots of meanings).

Z said...

You too scared to print this at Mustang's?

Anonymous said...

Z, I'm simply reposting what I said at Mustang's blog. His post stands on it's own.

Mustang, this is an excellent post. It's all so true, that I can't add anything except to say, this should be a campaign speech given by a true American candidate running for the Presidency.

Pris

Z said...

Pris, well said...He's a fabulous thinker/writer and I keep emailing him that he needs to send these pieces to magazines, etc...

Ducky's here said...

z, mustang uses js-kit. I have some kind of filter or add-on on my browser that makes posting on his blog random at best.

I assure you that I don't fear a severely indoctrinated military type.

Ducky's here said...

,,, oh, any substantive comments on Reagan's cost of borrowing and how we get out of this?

Hint: If you ain't talking cuts in military and health care spending you are just spreading the pure stinky cheese.

Z said...

If I had a substantive idea for getting out of this, I wouldn't be blogging, I'd be marching on Washington, Ducky.

Yes, I believe that Mustang's integrity astounds you and you are cowed by it, js-kit or not.
I'm considering the js-kit, too, and hoping not to have to install it. It wouldn't have been for you, necessarily, by the way, but someone else. Am still considering it.

Do you think I feel we have no problems in this country? Do you think I think it's ALL the Democrats' fault?
I'm not going to argue cutting military spending with you; it's far too complicated and , of course, makes us appear weak(er) around the world.

I'm leaving for a while...keep pitching.

(((Thought Criminal))) said...

Ducky,

Obama has added to the public debt more than Presidents Washington through Reagan did in 200 years.

And there's no new highways, no new space missions to the Moon... Nothing to show for all of Obama's spending insanity.

Can I ask you an off-topic question, Ducky?

Why do you foam at the mouth the most when you wade into topics you have no clue about, such as economics?

Anonymous said...

To adapt from President Reagan: Are you better off than you were just 2 years ago? Gas prices, real estate, unemplyoyment, reputation & respect abroad, border security, safety in the world, education levels, terrorism, national debt, health care, etc., etc. Hell, no!! God help us by the time it gets to 4 years---if we make it.

Silvrlady

Anonymous said...

This may seem a quantum leap, but after reading Mustang's pessimistic, but frighteningly truthful article I was reminded of the story of King Louis XIV of France who preempted and weakened all possible opposition from the landed aristocrats who at that time enjoyed a great deal of independence from the central government of that time.

Louis XIV wanted to strengthen the central government (in this case his personal power) in order to unify France ostensibly. What he did was to invite all the nobles -- the Dukes, Duchesses, Counts, Countesses, etc. to stay for long periods at the newly built Versaillles where they were wined and dined and treated to a surfeit of glorious, spectacular entertainments. This, of course, made the nobles beholden to Louis for his largesse, and the nobles soon grew weak, irresolute and less and less capable of maintaining their own sovereignty -- which is exactly what Louis wanted, of course. Louis aggrandized himself and increased his power, while weakening those with potential to oppose by "spoiling" them with too much luxury, too much ease and too much rich living.

Isn't there a very real parallel between the tactics of King Louis XIV and the crypto-Marxists who took over the Democratic party during the reign of King Franklin Delano of Roosevelt and started the Entitlement Mentality that has been slowly-but-surely dragging us down for the past eighty years?

Perhaps that is not what Mustang had in mind when he wrote this piece, but the same principle was violated in the time of Louis XIV as was later dine under the aegis of the New Deal.

This perverse use of power -- with many superficial variations -- has been around a long time -- at least since 300 B.C.

"Like the diet prescribed by doctors, which neither restores the strength of the patient nor allows him to succumb, so these doles that you are now distributing, neither suffice to ensure your safety nor allow you to renounce them and try something else."

~ Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.)


Regrettably the adage holds true.



I wonder if it will ever be possible to break the vicious cycles in which civilizations invariably seem to move sooner or later?

Anonymous said...

The adage that holds true regrettably is this:

"The lesson we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."

Why it didn't print with the rest of the post I can't imagine.

At any rate, it's just another way of saying "He who cannot remember the past is condemned to repeat it" -- a statement credited to Georges Santayana, poet, author and one time president of Harvard University.

Anonymous said...

Obama has added to the public debt more than Presidents Washington through Reagan did in 200 years. ...

BRAVO! That needed to be said, and needs to repeated often. It still doesn't excuse the spending of George W. Bush, though, or any of the other ardent practitioners of deficit spending who've brought us to our present plight cumulatively over many decades.

Ducky's here said...

Beamish, where was the right wing when Saint Ronnie Raygun was adding large sums to the debt at a cost of borrowing in excess of 12%?

Now, Obama is adding current dollars at a cost of borrowing of 1% so remembering that the problem is the cost of debt service do a little math and report back to class.

I love it when the fringe starts dancing around Raygun's record. Sometimes, just for a second, they get an insight into what a disaster he was.

Ducky's here said...

... factor in inflation also, Beamish.

Anonymous said...

If President Reagan was a "disaster," those who have followed in his wake qualify as a series of catastrophes of apocalyptic proportion.

When Carter left office, the DOW was at c. 700, and mortgage interest rates were at something like 15-16%. Our prestige abroad was at an all time low, our military all-but emasculated.

If President Reagan was a "disaster," is there a term potent enough to describe the abominable incompetence of his predecessor?

PLEASE!