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| Economy |
| Western World Operating On Shaky Business Model |
| 2011-07-23 |
| Obama has done his best to pretend to take them seriously. He claimed to have a $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan. The court eunuchs of the press corps were impressed, and went off to file pieces hailing the president as "the grown-up in the room." There is, in fact, no plan. No plan at all. No plan whatsoever, either for a deficit reduction of $4 trillion or $4.73. As is the way in Washington, merely announcing that he had a plan absolved him of the need to have one. So the president's staff got out the extra-wide teleprompter and wrote a really large number on it, and simply by reading out the really large number, the president was deemed to have produced a serious blueprint for trillions of dollars in savings. For his next trick, he'll walk out on to the stage of Carnegie Hall, announce that he's going to play Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 2, and, even though there's no cello in sight and Obama immediately climbs back in his golf cart to head for the links, music critics will hail it as one of the most moving performances they've ever heard. |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #8 To paraphrase a famous saying "Before wealth can be consumed, it has to be produced." Or, to put it another way---which country is wealthier: Israel with 7 million people, or Egypt with 80? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-07-23 15:12 |
| #7 Consumers & population growth won't help much without key ingredients like cheap/abundant energy, rule of law, innovation unhampered by stupid bureaucracies, etc. China in the 1500's had plenty population, but accounted for very little on the world scene. Britain in the 1700's outstripped the French in the industrial revolution partly due to their cultural / constitutional advantages & partly due to cheap/abundant coal. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-07-23 15:05 |
| #6 new consumers |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-07-23 14:56 |
| #5 population growth (the only real engine of economic growth) ????????????? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-07-23 14:54 |
| #4 Since the ignorant educational systems of the west embraced Karl Marx as their GOD and government as their Holy Spirit. All of mankind has embraced coveting as their moral and bearing false witness as their shelter. |
| Posted by: newc 2011-07-23 12:41 |
| #3 Respectfully disagree. Our economic "growth" has been premised on an expanding labor pool filled with illegal aliens and women, with all the attendant problems caused and new private and public services formed to deal with such a social/political calamity. The national and state governments have benefited mightily from the largesse of this "growth" that has finished working its way through the economic system, and there is simply nothing more that can be done to ever expand the economy or the government. Don't take my word for it. Cuts or no cuts; tax increases or not, under the current circumstances our economy will begin to grow at its "natural" rate conforming to population growth (the only real engine of economic growth), which will probably be less than 2 percent for the foreseeable future. The political question is, will the US and state governments continue to demand an ever larger share of whatever is left, or will we finally be forced to reign in government at all levels and limit its role in our daily lives? Seems to me we are at the point now where there is little choice. |
| Posted by: badanov 2011-07-23 12:26 |
| #2 Mark Steyn makes many good points in this article. The ruling party of the Brokest Nation in History has no spending plan other than to plan to spend even more. No rating agencies are downgrading it. The media coverage of this story has been fraudulent. MSM coverage of this issue is a DISGRACE. One structural problem Steyn did not mention is energy. Modern economic growth is depend on cheap / abundant energy sources. Note the 'cheap' and 'abundant' part - they must be linked. This excludes all 'green' energy initiatives. The US government has been actively working at making US energy supplies more expensive and less available than ever before. Its only contribution to making conventional energy sources more available are all our troops in the Middle East and central Asia. Much of the worldwide economic malaise is related to increasingly more expensive and scarcer energy supplies, and this is the weakest link in our 'shaky business model.' |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2011-07-23 12:07 |
| #1 When was socialism/collectivism/redistributionism ever a 'business' model? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-07-23 09:05 |