Counting our political blessings

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It’s nice to see an article pointing out how well we have done in having had the US elect Donald Trump. This is by Andrew Klavan who I don’t recall having been a fan during the election but does seem to have seen the light, calling his post Thanks GOP! with not a trace of irony meant. Just by not being Hillary, DJT has done more than could ever have been hoped for. But as Klavan points out, there is much much more to be thankful for even if it is not everything we might have wanted.

So yes, let those of us on the right continue to push for more conservative legislation, and let us complain some whenever we don’t get it. But let’s not be blinded to the fact that things are going pretty well for the good guys right now.

Maybe we could call a pause in carping at President Trump and tarring and feathering Speaker Ryan and scorning Senator Mitch McConnell just long enough to tell them thanks.

To this day, I run across people who tell me they identify with the right side of politics but lament that Donald Trump because president. This is such massive stupidity never mind ingratitude by people who, whatever they may think about themselves, have not the slightest idea how politics works.

William Baumol and me

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Let me add a few words about William Baumol who has just passed away at the age of 95 which is very good going. He truly ought to have won the Nobel Prize in Economics. But what I would like to add to the record is what a truly great academic he was to the full extent of the meaning of the word and in the most positive way one can imagine. It was at the start of my work on Say’s Law back in the 1980s that I came across an article written in 1952 by two of the all time greats of economics, William Baumol and Gary Becker, on “The Classical Monetary Theory: The Outcome of the Discussion”. And whatever you might think from the title, it is about Say’s Law, end to end. And in that article, they craft what has become the modern sophisticated version of Say’s Law which is the division of the concept into Walras’ Law, Say’s Identity and Say’s Equality. I don’t think that’s right, but it was the time of high Keynesianism and it was not worth anyone’s career to criticise Keynes, and so they used someone by name of Lange as the stand-in in an article entirely devoted to showing that the arguments found in The General Theory n Say’s Law were baseless.

While Becker never came back to this issue, Baumol did. In 1977 he published an article on “Say’s (at Least) Eight Laws, or What Say and James Mill May Really Have Meant”. Both articles were important parts of my thesis, and I therefore wrote an article critical of Baumol on his explanation of Say’s Law. My supervisor then said that I should send Baumol a copy before I sent it off for publication which I did. And then – and this is the most surprising thing from an academic point of view – I received an exceptionally nice reply from Baumol to say that he had enjoyed my article but didn’t think I had actually understood him correctly. The details are now completely gone of what and why, and there is no doubt that I do not agree with the Becker and Baumol conclusion, but I also agreed with Baumol that whatever I had been saying was not accurate. So I thanked him for his interest and didn’t even try to publish the article.

But eventually I ended up in a dispute with someone else over Say’s Law and this led to my being invited by the Eastern Economic Journal to lead a symposium. I therefore asked Baumol, along with Mark Blaug and the original person who I had been in disagreement with, to contribute to this symposium, for which I wrote the opening and closing articles. My opening was titled: On the True Meaning of Say’s Law. And while I have refined some of it, I would stand behind everything I wrote at the time.

Baumol in his contribution added to his own previous work. This is the abstract from his article which I can only find here (but it is actually Baumol’s 1977 article that is attached Say’s (at Least) Eight Laws, or What Say and James Mill May Really Have Meant). This is the abstract:

Part of a Symposium entitled, “Say’s Law Revisited,” this note is dedicated to showing that both Say’s and Ricardo’s concerns about unemployment were deeper than even the Kates article (in this symposium) suggests, that this concern even led Say to advocate a clear Keynesian remedy for unemployment: public works. Correspondingly, the paper shows that Ricardo’s disquiet about joblessness constitutes a good part of his reversal on the role of machinery (i.e., innovation) that so distressed his adherents.

I eventually did meet him personally and the impression that I had had in our correspondence that he was a very kind, good natured and sweet individual, as well as being as sharp and analytical as one might wish, was more than confirmed in the three quarters of an hour he gave me of his time. And by the time we met, there was no doubt in his mind how opposite to pretty well everything he thought about macroeconomic theory and Say’s Law I am. He was nevertheless everything one could have hoped him to be both as an academic and a human being. I therefore wished to add my own tribute based on my own brief encounters with one of the truly great economists of our time.

Les Miz after reality finally bites

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An absolutely stunning photo. The people behind the barricades are, of course, the people who put Chavez and now Maduro into power. I wonder what they now know that they didn’t know then. If you look to the government to give you things you didn’t earn for yourself, this is the very plausible place you will end up. That is why when I have gone to see Les Miz, I always cheer for Inspector Javert.

Picked up at Instapundit.

UPDATE: Here is perhaps an article that may have the explanation: What Caused Venezuela’s Collapse Is No Mystery — Except To Economically Illiterate Journalists. So let us see what answer they come up with. This is where they start:

The cause is simple. Socialism. End it and you will end the misery.

I suppose that’s right, but what is this thing referred to as “socialism”. What are its characteristics and what can be done to avoid it? This, I’m afraid, we don’t entirely find out. The rest of the article describes how mainstream journalists evade the issue, with examples from The New York Times, The LA Times and USA Today. They attribute the collapse to falling oil prices, corrupt business leaders and even the weather which brought on a drought. And, of course, these weren’t the causes of the drastic failure of the Venezuelan economy, but after all is said and done, we end where the story began.

It is their unwillingness to admit that socialism can’t work that drives so many mainstream journalists to look for something, anything, else to blame when socialist economies invariable fail.

Socialism is merely a word that describes lots of economic systems, many of which have been very successful. What’s missing is any discussion of what in particular they have been doing wrong. It is this that seems to leave out that specifics of what needs to be avoided and what ought to be done in its place.

It wasn’t Comey it was Obama who did Hillary in

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Listening to Hillary maunder on about Comey does make me think she actually knows the truth but knows she cannot say it herself. I have never been in any doubt that it was Comey who made PDT possible, but it was Obama via Loretta Lynch who was behind it all. I wrote about it a week before the election in a post I titled, Raisin’ Kaine to the highest office in the land which is, of course, reprinted in my The Art of the Impossible: A Blog History of the Election of Donald J.Trump as President. The same scenario was also discussed in another post on November 4. These are the ingredients for what is a very simple sequence that fits every fact not to mention the personal motivations of each of the persons involved. It also explains what Hillary cannot say but more likely than not knows herself.

1) Obama hates Hillary.

2) Tim Kaine is not just from the Obama side of the Democratic Party but was one of the first of the Democrats to defect to Obama in 2007. Hillary would never ever under ordinary circumstances have chosen Kaine for her Vice President, even assuming he would be a great campaign asset which he most assuredly was not.

3) However, she can only run for president if she is not under indictment for the undoubtedly illegal use of an insecure server. Hillary was therefore compelled to choose someone who she would never have chosen as her Vice Presidential candidate.

4) Obama’s aim was to be succeeded by someone with his own agenda to carry on where he had left off.

5) Hillary wanted to be president, but not necessarily serve as president. She is a sick woman which can hardly be denied. She might not have lasted a year before her illnesses would have forced her to resign.

6) But in any case, just in case she was reluctant to give up the presidency once she had it, the evidence of illegal activity could be used to impeach her if she chose to battle on, or at the very least, force her to stand aside and allow the Vice President to take over.

7) Comey had begun the original investigation, which was extraordinary enough. But since it is necessary for Hillary to win if Kaine was to become president, Comey – under instruction – says on his own bat that she has no case to answer.

8) Hillary then moves to the front and looks set to win the election. But now there is no means to force her from office if she doesn’t want to go. So suddenly 650,000 classified emails are found on Weiner’s laptop leading Comey – under instruction from Obama – to open the investigation again.

9) But then, to everyone’s astonishment on the Democrat side of politics, Trump begins to move ahead in the last week of the election, throwing the result into doubt. The investigation against Hillary therefore needs to be shut down immediately. Comey therefore declares that they FBI has gone through the 650,000 emails and states there is nothing there to prosecute.

10) But by then it is too late and Trump gathers just enough momentum due to the various scandals that have surrounded Hillary to win the election.

Hence this: Clinton blames Comey, WikiLeaks for election loss. I think this is exactly right:

Clinton said she was on track to winning the election until Oct. 28, when news broke that Comey had sent a letter to Congress announcing that he had reopened the investigation into her emails. . . .

“I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” Clinton said.

Saying that the WikiLeaks came from Russia is just part of the fake news dross, but the WikiLeaks no doubt did matter but was hardly decisive. It was the investigation by the FBI that made her electoral poison. I even agree with her when she says she would have won had the election been held the week before. I wrote exactly this on the first of November, where I discussed A Week is a Long Time in Politics – another post reprinted in my book. There I wrote: “In my view, had the election been held today, Hillary would have won.” We’ll never know since the election was held a week later and bless my soul, by then, thanks to Obama with the assistance of James Comey, DJT was elected instead.

“We have to be prepared to do what we have to do”

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The differences between DJT and his predecessor are profound. Obama was a lightweight far-left dunce who took almost nothing seriously other than his self-importance. Trump feels the weight of the world on his shoulders: Trump: ‘You make a mistake here, there is nothing to work out’. This is the same quote found at Instapundit:

Over the next 40 minutes, he jumps, in classic Trump fashion, over a range of topics, from his relations with foreign leaders to the danger of North Korea, from the election last year to his hopes for America tomorrow.

Yet listen closely, especially when he speaks about decisions involving life and death, and you sense that sitting here, in the Oval Office, as the 45th president has humbled even Donald J. Trump.

“You can make a mistake in deals, and you work it out,” he explains at one point. “You make a mistake here, there is nothing to work out. You know it’s trouble. It could be big trouble. And it is life-threatening trouble for lots of people, potentially.”

A portrait of Thomas Jefferson hangs to his right, one of Andrew Jackson, perhaps his favorite president, is to his left. A bust of a sober-looking Abraham Lincoln sits beneath Jefferson, while Trump’s father smiles broadly from a black-and-white photo behind the Resolute Desk, given by Queen Victoria in 1880 to Rutherford B. Hayes and used by many presidents since.

“It’s a very intensive process,” he says of the presidency. “Really intense. I get up to bed late and I get up early.” He rarely sleeps more than four hours, which is good, he explains, because he can call leaders around the world in the dark hours while the rest of Washington sleeps.

“When I was doing many real estate deals at one time, I always thought that was going to be more comprehensive and lengthier than a day like this.

“It’s not.”

So far into his presidency, as with so many modern-era presidents before him, much of his focus has been on challenges from abroad.

Let me also add a few quotes from the comments at Instapundit which help round out how people such as myself see DJT as president.

The entire interview, whatever you think of Trump’s policies, is an exposition of how stupid the never Trump right was in claiming that Trump was unfit for office. Trump was never anything like the boogieman the Washington establishment created. He was always a dead serious person and someone who anyone but our morally and intellectually bankrupt establishment could see would rise to the responsibilities of the job as well as any President since Reagan. The establishment of course saw Trump as the opposite because in Washington black is white and up is down. They live in their own alternative reality.

“An atmosphere — friendly, happy, energetic — infuses the Oval Office, already glowing with afternoon sunlight. You find yourself wondering what the next discussion among these figures will be, how it might add to two centuries of history, sometimes good, sometimes terrifying, that has unfolded within these curved walls.” Staffers are … happy? In a Hillary administration, they would be slicing themselves to ribbons. I’d love to know how he does it. My guess: Hire the best and quickly get rid of those who don’t work out. This is first-class management. This is what you get from someone who actually knows what he is doing, thanks to decades of experience.

He may not be the most well-spoken President we’ve had, but he brings a certain clarity in action if not always in words. And, he clearly loves this country. That alone is a welcome change from the preceding 8 years. Whatever he does, he’s doing it for the USA. It’s great having a President that isn’t beholden to someone/something else. Also, I never understood why anyone would think he was stupid or ill-informed. I don’t care how many advantages one starts out with, you cannot be as successful in the business world as he is and be stupid. He’s a deal-maker- he knows how to cut through the BS and figure out what the issues are. That would be a statesman who actually succeeds, as opposed to just appearing to be a diplomat by holding meetings, conference calls, issuing statements and flitting around the world.

I think a lot of the charge that he is stupid or ill informed comes from the fact that the media and most of the political class believe in the magic power of words. They are so detached from reality and so immersed in their own obsession with words over reality that they think that being clever and speaking well is the same thing as being competent at something. They think saying something well is the same thing as doing something well.

I originally thought that Donald Trump, during the campaign, was there to clear the Political Correctness out of the way for Ted Cruz. I voted for Ted in the Primary. By the time the General rolled around, I was happy to vote for Donald J. I realize now that Cruz could not have won. Republicans always succumb to Political Correctness. Donald J does not. It’s a new wind that blows across this continent, from sea to shining sea. Let’s not blow it.

The enemy is Keynesian macro

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I’m afraid you can talk about debt and deficits to the end of time but unless you understand that the true enemy is macroeconomic theory with its emphasis on aggregate demand your chances of success are approximately zero. This is the equation of economic death: Y=C+I+G+(X-M). If this is not the focus, then things will just continue as they are until the crash comes and no one is willing to lend to us any more. Two bits from today.

First there was Jennifer Oriel with her Budget 2017: forget the fake patriotism and get working on debt. She sees the point, I suppose, but where is her full-blooded attack on the underlying theory? This is her hardest para but it is hardly a call to arms.

If the government drifts away from fiscal conservatism and ­engorges itself on the elusive promise of growth, it risks driving Australia off the fiscal cliff. It must downsize to reduce debt and ­repair the deficit. It could begin by cutting the morbidly obese ministry down to size. If the Coalition’s patriotism is more than mere rhetoric then it must make plain the case for an Australia-first budget by simplifying the taxation system, dropping the spin and putting the national interest first.

And then there was marcus with his terrifying statistics and historical record. This is a major public service: What did we get for our $400 billion loan? It really is the most blood-curdling analysis I have come across except that other than a few of us out here on the periphery, no one’s blood has been curdled. You really should read it, but my guess is that with aggregate demand at the core of economic theory, the general belief is that this debt and spending has saved us from a fate far worse than our current levels of debt.

Completely wrong, but we still have a lot of capital to run down before we truly hit the skids. So along the way we will put Labor back in who will blame it on Malcolm, or at least Tony. If you do not understand that the problem is the economics of Keynes and the theory of aggregate demand deficiency, you are not even at first base in understanding what needs to be done and why.

Well, how did it go?

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As a matter of fact, it could not have gone any better. Ross Cameron came and spoke on Donald Trump. Mark Latham came and spoke on Donald Trump. And then I spoke on Donald Trump. And as a coincidence it was also the 100th day since Donald Trump had become president. So a few highlights.

First, to find a room entirely full of Trump supporters is one of the most pleasant experiences I have had in many a while. For most of us, you know someone here or there, and occasionally come across someone else who, after oh so carefully venturing an opinion here and a comment there, and then listening very closely to the kind of response you proceed to sort of, very tentatively, go on to sort of venture into a slightly more open discussion until you find that well, bless my soul, this other person also would have voted for Trump, which since we are in Australia, no one actually does. This time, instead, it was a whole room full of such people – although it did turn out there was a media person from the Fairfax organisation who actually revealed him(her)self and in so doing, did not in even the slightest end up in fear for his/her life. But for the rest of us, a very good time was had by all.

And while a blogger’s life is spent in front of the console typing out whatever thoughts one has, public speaking is a different kind of art and we were genuinely blessed with Ross Cameron and Mark Latham. A reuniting of The Outsiders reminding of us of those Sky News vandals who have broken up the set. I could have listened forever – absolutely outstanding presentations but others who were there are invited to add their own thoughts – but eventually it was my turn, where, more or less, I followed the script I had outlined so I will only discuss a few added bits from the Q&A that came after.

So there was the question, what have I been surprised about these first hundred days, both on the plus side and then on the negative. For me, there has not been a negative of any kind. I am aware there are some who seem to think that these first hundred days should have been a major disappointment, but the only thing I have had confirmed, as I said on the night, was how useless the actual Republican Party is. Without Trump, nothing of any serious importance would change. The average of the spectrum across the party is Hillary-lite. Trump has made all the difference. As for what I have discovered that was unexpected on the plus side is how temperamentally sound he is. He does politics at an amazingly high level. No doubt he had plenty of time to learn the trade negotiating within New York and elsewhere about various projects he has had to bring through political systems of one kind or another. And now, having to deal with the consequences of Obama’s incompetence and outright anti-American malice, he has enough on his mind to occupy three presidents. I do have to say that more than ever, if you thought Obama was all right in some things and not so good in others, your political judgements are less than useless. If you are not endlessly grateful that it is Trump and not more of the same I really cannot tell you how great a fool I think you are. There are plenty of them, but their lives will only continue to work because they are oblivious of the harm Obama did and the good that Trump is capable of bringing, if he can only get the Republicrats to go along.

And the point I also made was that we do not live in Montana, where an isolationist US which has pulled its international outreach within its borders, will make little immediate difference. We are out here at the south end of Asia in the middle of the Pacific an isolated outpost of Western values. If you like this way of life and want it to continue, you had better hope that Trump continues to seek to enforce the Pax Americana that has existed since the 1940s.

The other thing that came up was my offhand comment to the effect that the parties of the left have never accomplished a single positive outcome on anything. They have brought with them mass misery through the various communist revolutions we have seen around the globe. But even where they have not been able to complete subvert our free communities and market economies, they have limited our freedoms and lowered economic outcomes, repeatedly impoverishing the bottom rungs of society by pretending to provide benefits they never quite seem to achieve. Every government of the left is eventually thrown out because of the damage they do, but back they come as soon as 50.1% of the population have forgotten the mayhem that comes with socialist practice. And having said it, I have not been able to conjure up in my mind a single counter instance where a party of the left has done some kind of general good. Meanwhile there is the shining example of Venezuela before us to remind those with the wit to understand exactly what happens if you let these people take over the political control-room with no means available to get them out again.

You can buy your own copy of The Art of the Impossible from the Book Depository for a mere $A32.48 with worldwide free delivery. The more I read the papers, the more I see the need for this book since it reminds you of the cultural-Marxist world we have been spared but which our brainless and fantastically ignorant media and political class will pull us back into the first chance they get. Read it and remind yourself of the narrow escape we have had, which will also hopefully fortify you for the ongoing assault by these 25-watt low-grade political elites and graduates of our schools of journalism.

The media caters for a dwindling stock of fellow simpletons

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If you need another reminder of just how dishonest the media is, and how ignorant the people who read what they write must be, let me take you to eleven things the press still doesn’t get about Trump. That Trump receives daily briefings from some of the most knowledgeable people in the American government is certainly a more reliable source for everything than reading it in the papers. And if you truly believe that Trump had been in cahoots with the Russians you are truly an ignorant moron. Here is the first:

Too often, the press forgets the very lessons Trump himself has taught us about how he operates and why it often works. For example, journalists often imply that Trump’s reliance on cable news is a liability because it leaves him ill-informed. And so it does—but it also leaves him highly attuned to that medium and able to respond to what he sees there with immediate, pitch-perfect tweets or other comments that come across as direct, authentic and trustworthy.

Another example: the power of repetition. Frequently, reporters assume that because they have already responded to a Trump assertion, the issue is settled. But then he repeats the same misinformation, as he did in defending the size of his inauguration crowds. In part, this is because he’s incapable of acknowledging loss or error. More important, it’s because one of his highest priorities is the construction of an alternate narrative and the delegitimization of the mainstream media, traditional authorities, and the primacy of facts.

Likewise, the press seems to have forgotten the power of distraction. Coverage of the Trump-ordered missile attack in Syria made little reference to how conveniently it deflected attention from Russia-gate, Trump’s conflicts of interest, his draconian budget cuts, etc. The media also understate Trump’s reliance on bullying, which works surprisingly well for him. With the recent exception of the House Freedom Caucus’ refusal to knuckle under and vote for the GOP’s health care act, most people (e.g., the other Republican presidential candidates and many TV commentators) back down.

Trump has also mastered the power of grievance and continues to use it. When an issue gets too sticky, he reverts to self-pity—fashioning himself as the victim of Barack Obama’s supposed wiretapping, for instance. The media might call such behavior weak or petty, but it also re-cements Trump’s bond with his followers as fellow victims of the Washington elite.

Finally, the press tends to forget how much Trump needs to keep experiencing the act of winning—and how much this drives his behavior. The likeliest reason for his charge that Obama wiretapped him is that Trump wants to feel as if he’s continuing to beat the biggest competitor he can find. And what bigger target than Obama?

“We don’t have a proper explanation”

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From Sex selection in Indian community persists despite years spent in Canada, researchers find

“Families prefer to have boys rather than girls,” said Urquia, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. “Or, if they already have daughters, they want to have at least one male in the family.”

While Canadian-born women give birth to about 105 boys for every 100 girls, Urquia and his team from the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital, showed Punjabi-speaking mothers in Ontario, at their third birth, had 240 boys for every 100 girls.

But you know what I find the most remarkable sign of naivety never mind outright culture-bound ignorance. This:

“We don’t have a proper explanation,” he said of the preference for boys. “We really don’t know why this is happening.”

Are they truly this stupid?