As I type these words, President-elect Obama is here on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University giving a major economics address. Read Eric Sweeney writes:
That whirring sound you hear is George Mason spinning in his grave as Obama speaks at GMU!
I’d be curious to know why he’s speaking here. The speech is invitation only. I was told it will be attended by "dignitaries–governors and mayors, politicians." Maybe they should call them undignataries. Having coffee this morning in the student center, Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, was one table over. He did not have his hand out but I’m sure he’s been practicing, getting ready for the Obama administration. I resisted the urge to ask him about this disgraceful behavior.
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Sit tight, and hold your nose!
infuriating. im no lover of politicians on a good day, but this makes you want to puke. the sheer arrogance………
Later this year New York City voters will have their IQ tested.
Well if the New Yorkers are as smart as they like to think they are they will simply turn Bloomberg out come election day. Which considering past votes for term limits and the current polling says is the most likely thing to happen.
Prof Roberts,
You should be flattered that the scum choose your forum to use as a backdrop to their propaganda.
You know as well as I that the backdrop, the setting, for propaganda furthers it tremendously if it is favorable or impressive in the minds of the public. And, where else can they find a better, more substantive backdrop than GMU with its world class economics department?
True it can be galling to be used but there is that upside.
I thought the location of this speech was pretty funny – Don B. must be turning red.
Of course libertarians who get government paychecks are pretty funny too.
And at least Bloomberg had a real job before becoming a politician.
He spoke to GMU because the university has dramatically raised its visibility in recent years as a center of libertarian thought. He realizes that he has to persuade or at least to acknowledge those with dissenting opinions from a command-and-control proposal.
Tyler Cowen was on NPR, commenting on the speech. As usual, impeccable.
Gappy,
Exactly. Obama is one of the best politicians ever (not meant as a compliment), so he is well aware of the center of opposition.
Do you work in the private sector? Do you buy your groceries in a grocery store? Do you as an individual trade with other individuals?
If you don't answer no to all of these questions you are a hypocrite.
I think being a libertarian isn't about whether or not you work in the private sector or for a government. It's about having the latitude to pursue what makes you happy. Happiness does not equal money. Happiness is having the ability to choose for yourself what you want to do with your life. If money is what makes you happy, then you get to go after some money. If more balance, family life, career satisfaction and all that are important to you, then you can pursue that! Contrast that to the planned economies, where you had the liberty to…go work in a factory for most of your day.
Russ,
I am no fan of Bloomy and I ardently believe in terms limits. However, let me give you some background. The business community in NYC got behind this movement big time because the NYC political culture is so ghastly and the odds of getting a parade of the worst hacks and cretins vying to fill the void left by Bloomy was too high in their opinion. There isn't a politician in NYC with enough name recognition to be competitive that has even a shred of honorability and/or ability. In this wasteland, the business community has counted ourselves lucky to string together the Rudy and Bloomberg years, but everyone knows this has been an anomaly and are too afraid to revert to the mean. Cynical calculus, I know, but there it is.
Obviously, billionaire Mayor Bloomberg's business interests no longer his attention since his focus should be undividedly on the city of New York. So there should be a requirement that he liquidate his self-running businesses before he can run for a third term. If he were a mensch (a popular New York word) he would gift the bulk of his fortune to the coffers of the city, state, & country that he purports to love so much. He should love them; they made him filthy rich. Fat chance of that ever happening in the real world of permitted greed and excess. Religious doctrine and decency has failed us, but Promises, Promises, an old Broadway show, is in the process of being revived at the right, symbolic time, I think.
It looks like Alex Tabarrok got an invite and liked what he heard: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/01/obama-at-gmu.html
I'd be interested in hearing a rebuttal from the Austrian blogosphere!
I am little confused by some of these comments. Being a New Yorker, my confusion is probably not surprising to some of you. Yet I think some of the comments about Bloomberg don't seem to consider the alternatives.
Some observations:
A very strong case can be made that Bloomberg is the best mayor NY has had in modern history. He makes tough decisions and stands by them in way no other political figure I have observed is able to do. He has been able to make measurable progress in politically difficult areas where others have consistently failed (budgets and education, for two examples).
The biggest thing in his favor is that Bloomberg's incentives are much better aligned with the long term good of the city than any other current NY political figure. He is not beholden to special interests (especially unions) like almost every other current figure. He likes power, like all politicians, but has zero need for campaign contributions.
Bloomberg is smart, and understands both economics and business to a degree no other politician I know does.
Under our current political system someone has to be in office. Bloomberg is immensely better than the alternatives. There will probably be unintended consequences of increasing term limits, but I am willing to make an informed decision to accept that tradeoff in order to have Bloomberg in office over the next couple of years.
James Kibler
"but I am willing to make an informed decision to accept that tradeoff in order to have Bloomberg in office over the next couple of years"
Great!
Only youre not making any decision informed or otherwise. That has being conveniently taken care of by less than 30 politicians. Had it been put to a vote you and millions of NY'ers would have been able to.
But for some reason, although the "people have spoken" twice, Bloomy thinks that he and some of the folks at the office have a better handle on it than than say…. you?
Obama quote;
"The very fact that this crisis is largely of our own making means that it is not beyond our ability to solve."
It means nothing of the sort. What it means is that there is a very high probability that your bumbling around will make things worse.
If you want to really get sick, read
the fawning and obsequious review of the
speech by Alex Tarrabok. He clearly has
been turned into a zombie.
world of permitted greed and excess
Hmmm. Well, a damper needs to be put on that.
We can't have humans pursuing self interest, can we?
dave–good point, I had no say in that particular decision. In almost all cases I would be very much against political moves of this kind. In this particular case, though, I prefer the outcome to the alternative.
I'm fairly certain Bloomberg has a better handle on administering policy than 1) me, 2) the other folks in office, 3) the voting public, and 4) any other alternative candidate. So I'm OK with it. It's an imperfect solution, but the best of the available set of alternatives.
On another point, I certainly hope Mike has his hand out. NYC has been a net source (not recipient) of tax dollars for years (other than those directly following 2001). We certainly could use some infrastructure spending, and the current system doesn't incentivize private investment in such.
I'm from Upstate, not NYC, but I'd be super angry if politicians just decided to bypass me entirely and vote for an extra term. Marathoning Rome isn't helping any (Dictator perpetuo!)
There you go, James Kibler, make a valid point why don't you?
You live in NYC and will be affected and as you said you have more personal on-hands knowledge of the political reality (hopefully your judgments are valid) so I defer to you on the value of Bloomberg.
Good on you for speaking up.
On another point, I certainly hope Mike has his hand out. NYC has been a net source (not recipient) of tax dollars for years (other than those directly following 2001). We certainly could use some infrastructure spending, and the current system doesn't incentivize private investment in such.
James, until 2008, I was a long time New Yorker. I've never met a politician who wasn't on many levels a scumbag. That said, I thought Rudy was a better Mayor and unlike Mike he didn't use 9/11 to seek to extend his reign. The fact that Mike wants to is disturbing. On the other hand, in New York politics, Bloomberg stands head and shoulders above the competition. I have a hard time disliking him on a comparative basis and voted for him twice. The problem with extending the limits is that when Mike does descend from the Mayoral throne, the next disaster will have extended term limits as well.
As for the city's sad economic condition, the city largely brought it on itself. Between the union pandering, smorgasbord of welfare programs and the highest taxes in the country to pay for it, the city has been punishing and producers and attracting parasites for decades. I don't have to tell a fellow New Yorker how hard it is to get the simplest things done in New York and how expensive the city makes it for successful people to live there. I don't see why we should force the taxpayer in Topeka to subsidize NYC's mistakes so that they may continue unchecked by reality. The current system is the problem. It needs changing, not subsidy.
If he were a mensch (a popular New York word) he would gift the bulk of his fortune to the coffers of the city, state, & country that he purports to love so much.
Yeah. We should force Obama to disgorge his millions too (he made what? $3 million in 2007?) and take a vow of poverty before we inaugurate him. Like a priest.
Allow me to point out to you your circular logic, although there is zero hope of you understanding. In a previous post you insisted that we should pay politicians like sports stars to attract the best of the best. But you are against private investors paying their CEO's like sports stars and you want them to disgorge the wealth the actually created rather than stolen from others as politicians. You rail (endlessly) against greed and the wealth created by private individuals by pleasing their fellow man and yet you want to bestow endless riches on politicians for simply winning an election. Interesting.
Can't wait for the billions stolen from us to trickle down through the hands of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors.
Methinks,
Re your last to STrUmPiT, you're close to the action. Did Bloomberg become filthy rich before considering running for office, or did he become filthy rich as a result of winning election as STrUmPiT implies? What government business did Bloomberg engage in that made him filthy rich?
Rhetorical question, no answer required.
STrUmPiT is a muirduck clone only more so. It is hard to conceive of someone being less mental than muirduck but there it is.
Welcome back.
"I'm fairly certain Bloomberg has a better handle on administering policy than 1) me, 2) the other folks in office, 3) the voting public, and 4) any other alternative candidate. So I'm OK with it. It's an imperfect solution, but the best of the available set of alternatives."
You keep missing the point. MB is a superb manager and judging from his record runs things very well. As a matter of fact I would vote yes to extend term limits just to have him continue to do things as imperfectly as he may do it.
Now the fact is the majority of Ny voters – you know, the commoners – voted twice to impose limits for reasons known to them and overriding that the way he did is callous, arrogant and insulting on a whole new level -even to politicians.
TrUmPiT on Jan 8, 2009 @ 2:03:10 PM
"Religious doctrine and decency has failed us"
Speak for yourself…
Bloomberg background:
Mike Bloomberg is but an accident in the financial world: he was the first guy to publish yield curve info electronically, back when nobody 1) did aggregate yc analysis, 2) electronically.
He created that data market. Bully for him.
He’s also been a registered Democrat, Republican, and Independent. Bully for him.
Mayor Bloomberg has capitalized on information vacuums throughout his career. Extending his viceroyship (?) is a continuation of this behavior.
I've been heavily dependent on my Bloomberg machine my whole professional life (I'm sure Mesa can relate). The interface is pretty old and backward, but the product and service really has no competition in the industry. Reuters tries to compete but it fails miserably.
Incidentally, Bloomberg has been a liberal Democrat his entire life. He changed registration to Republican the first time he ran for Mayor because the Democrat field was so crowded with career politicians that he thought he wouldn't stand out. The Republicans had no viable candidates. When being a Republican was no longer expedient because it associated him with another Republican – Bush – he became and independent. Just some fun facts.
Dave drove to the heart of the matter: "the commoners – voted twice to impose limits for reasons known to them and overriding that the way he did is callous, arrogant and insulting on a whole new level -even to politicians." But it's so "Bloomberg".
Vidyohs, "STrumpit"? You've outdone yourself.
In this George Mason speech, Barack Obama said – "A world that depends on the strength of our economy is now watching and waiting for America to lead once more. And that is what we will do."
This is absolutely right. US leadership in kickstarting the international economy is crucial. But the case for this is also partly because the United States itself is dependent on the good health of the world economy.
The Bank of England said this just now in explaining its latest historic interest rate cut – "The world economy appears to be undergoing an unusually sharp and synchronised downturn. Measures of business and consumer confidence have fallen markedly. World trade growth this year is likely to be the weakest for some considerable time." As Obama said soon after the election – "We must also remember that the financial crisis is increasingly global and requires a global response."
In the discussions of recent months it has become increasingly clear to me that both the US and the wider global economies need:
1. coordinated macro-economic stimulus (both through monetary and fiscal policy)
2. strong international economic institutions like the IMF and World Bank (both of which seem to have been contributing positively to dealing with the current crisis), and
3. every possible measure to maintain an open international trading system and to avoid the perils of protectionism.
This is very much in line with what we can learn from the now-revived John Maynard Keynes (as understood from Skidelsky's and Moggridge's biographies, and Markwell's study of Keynes and international relations).
It is good to see Barack Obama place emphasis on the international context, and the importance of US leadership. It would be even better to see him commit clearly to those three points, including to be clear that he will stand strongly against the self-destructive economic nationalism and protectionism that has done so much harm in the past.
US economic leadership in this way will serve the interests both of the United States and of the wider world.
Methinks, no human being should have anywhere close to billion dollars. It's immoral no matter if you think (smallishly) that somehow they "earned it." You don't have any concept of how big $1,000,000,000 is. Sorry you lose the debate because your mind is 1/1,000,000,000 or 10^-9 cubic meters of slush. You suffer from innumeracy like most libertarians do. There is no cure other for the condition other than to start counting from 1 to a billion. When you finish then we can talk. Work on your diction because saying 999,999,999 can take a while.
Bloomberg has been as hostile to the right to keep and bear arms as any American politician in history, and is a piece of shit for that, if for no other reason.
Any time a politician claims that he and he alone should direct the means to defend me and my family against hostilities, I understand it to mean that he has intentions against me and my family that he'd rather I not be able to defend myself from.
Methinks,
I second Vidyohs in welcoming you back. The Village Idiot has been on quite a tear lately and I've missed your wit in dealing with him.
BTW, the federal government is about to spend close to a trillion dollars on a so-called stimulus package whether you like it or not. Who would you like to pay for it? From all your whining and pouting (I really mean screaming at the top of your lungs like a crazy banshee) about the government stealing your hard earned money, I know you don't want to contribute one thin dime. So Bloomberg's 30,000,000,000 would make a nice down payment. Then we can look to the rest of the super rich to pitch in to make up the rest. It sounds good to me; they can best afford it; you apparently can't.
Here's a point that few make.
Unemployment is a reflection on the education system's inability to equip individuals with the skills needed to compete for and create their own jobs.
Heaping billions of dollars onto public works jobs does nothing to solve the education system's problems, nor does it increase the skill sets of the workers being employed.
Effectively the best that public spending on public works can hope for is to cover for the public failure of public education.
Do schools teach what feedback loops are these days?…
Obama: "Throughout America's history, there have been some years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare. And then there are the years that come along once in a generation, the kind that mark a clean break from a troubled past and set a new course for our nation. This is one of those years."
Emphasis mine…
Barack: Can you be specific about "troubled past"?
God help us…
This guy would be a great encyclopedia salesman.
Trumpit,
"…no human being should have anywhere close to billion dollars."
A completely religious moral sentiment. My moral sentiment is that no one should have one penny more than they have earned (or been given through a true charitable act). Of course, most of the political class would be made penniless overnight (a feature, not a bug).
"Who would you like to pay for [stimulus]?"
The political class. That is, I'd like to see them take it out of their own personal accounts and give it back. Or, they can downsize their dependency institutions (aka government) dollar for dollar of stimulus, that would work too.
"US economic leadership in this way will serve the interests both of the United States and of the wider world.
Posted by: Emily Ng | Jan 9, 2009 12:00:55 AM"
I totally agree with you and Fareed Zakaria that US leadership is very important to the world now and in the future not only in economic issues but social and political as well. However, where the leadership intends to take us all is very important, what is the ultimate goal and how desperate the path to that goal?
I don't think you'll find too many of us here sympathetic to top down control and any more loss of individual liberty. Which, topd down control, I suggest, is exactly how Obama et. al. see as necessary, individual liberty be damned.
What we need, and what the constitution was intended to give us, is more of the nature of a referee rather than a slave driver/owner. The problem is that the referees have taken over the game and displaced all other symblance of control.
Leadership, such as that offered by Obama et. al., can be effective and strong, yet turn out to be a total disaster in results. Gen. George Custer was by all accounts a strong and effective leader and he led his people directly into total disaster.
Where Obama et. al. want to take us is to the same sort of disaster in regards to individual liberty. Freedom will be replaced (it already has) by permission, privileges will replace rights; and if you toe their line you'll be okay, but God forbid you think of doing something on your own.
This is why liberals are complete morons:
"no human being should have anywhere close to billion dollars."
In case you haven't noticed, "a billion dollars" is simply a stack of paper, a pile of metal chips or bars, or maybe even a number in a ledger. It offers no intrinsic utility.
We know two things about a person who has a billion dollars. First, it's a person who has forgone an astronomical amount of consumption. A person with a billion dollars has grown his entitlement by allowing hundreds or thousands, or perhaps even millions of other people to consume his share of "the pie." It's hard to imagine something an individual can do that would be more valuable for his fellow man than to accumulate "a billion dollars," and yet here you are, with the stones to call it "immoral."
The second thing we know about a person with a billion dollars is that he doesn't really have that many "dollars." He has assets. All the "billion dollars" is, in reality, is a convenient measurement of how much all the rest of us think those assets are worth. So, what you liberal morons are saying, is that a person can only own something until it becomes so valuable, and beyond that it becomes immoral for him to own it.
You are a fool. You feel for people who can't afford bread. You're smart enough to visualize how much bread a billion dollars could buy, but too frickin' stupid to recognize how important a bakery tycoon's assets are to the bread supply. You would seize it, and then you would wonder why people are still hungry.
It is truly sad that the electorate is tainted with so much of the stupidity that defines liberalism.
At what point does net worth become immoral? Why?
Well, it is nice to read such witty and spirited and often intelligent comments.
As a NY'er, I have to weigh in on one thing Methinks said (and I really appreciate your thinking, Methinks, overall).
Rudy Giuliani DID try and use 9-11 to extend his term. He asked for an extension of his term a delay in the election and the city council, whom he'd alienated completely over his eight years of bullyship, refused.
He was a fascist. He talked out of one side of his mouth about cutting the city budget, while simultaneously bloating it out of the other. His policy ideas as a presidential candidate? "I was the mayor of 9-11".
Yes crime went down on his watch, but it went down at least in part because the overall economy got better, and because Dinkins (while being corrupt and incompetent in many many ways) did some of the dirty work of hiring more cops. If we give Rudy credit for the drop in crime, then we have to give Bill Clinton credit for the economic boom of the 1990s, which I just have a slight hunch wouldn't be so popular here.
I think Bloomberg's end run around democracy was deplorable. I also think he's been the best mayor we've had in my 20+ years here. Maybe that's why I love NYC so much – it's such a mass of human contradiction. I think the more we deal with facts rather than rhetoric, though, the more we can learn and believe.
Trumpit,
"…no human being should have anywhere close to billion dollars."
A completely religious moral sentiment.
ABSOLUTELY NOT! The three big monotheistic religions Christianity, Islam & Judaism all their followers to engage in charity, but I can think of no textual or doctrinal prohibition of the possession of wealth in excess of some certain amount.
Wealth is the result of a lot of things, effort, ability, birth rite and what Milton Friedman referred to as “the vicissitudes of fortune”. Some are controllable, some not and attempts by the government to equalize outcomes seem to me, to always involve theft (sanctified and approved by statists as taxation) or the creation of artificial impediments to the creation or disposition of wealth.
Being (an imperfect) Christian, I am most familiar with Christian thought. While a great many Christian organizations have tried to make the individual possession of great wealth a public issue-generally as a gross over-extension and misuse of the story about Jesus Christ asking the man to sell all that he had and give it to the poor.
For those unfamiliar with the account, Christ requested VOLUNTARY disgorgement of the man’s wealth when the man who was looking for a check-box recipe to assure his salvation. When the man heard this direction he left. Christ didn’t stop him.
Christ then made the oft-misused comment about it being harder for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The story isn’t as the “vast leftwing conspiracy masquerading as Christians” like to represent , especially those peddling the gospel of Marx under the guise of “liberation theology”.
Also note that when asked about taxes, Christ deferred on the matter-asking his questioners whose head is on the coin and then saying render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s, but render unto God that which belongs to God”.
It is not would have you believe, an indictment on wealth exceeding some “obscene” level -but a directive to be detached from the things of this world, no matter how necessary or appealing. I would love it if just once the faux religious would express as much disapproval over the unchecked concentration of economic power in the hands of those who obtain it through confiscation as they do over private fortunes. At least some of the private fortunes are earned through meritorious results, voluntary exchange and wise management, which can’t be said of the ever expanding public treasuries that are confiscated to reward political and electoral contributions.
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…
Imagine 3,000,000 hungry undernourished. homeless children in America, Africa and Gaza each given $10,000. That's Bloomberg's $30,000,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 kids. Imagine the happiness Bloomberg will have created. Imagine you are no longer a selfish Libertarian who can't do simple arithmetic. It's easy if you try…
Trumpit, we aren't selfish. We simply understand the power of self-preservation. You ask that Bloomberg act contrary to the nature of his humanity.
"That's Bloomberg's $30,000,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 kids. Imagine the happiness Bloomberg will have created."
Imagine Bloomberg starving to death…
"Imagine you are no longer a selfish Libertarian who can't do simple arithmetic."
Imagine you weren't asshole who believes he has the right to tell others what they can and can't do. Imagine you'd learned the age-old adage "give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a life-time."
Please, please troll someplace else. This is tiresome.
You called me an asshole, you stinking troll. That is your main argument and that Bloomberg will starve. Sorry, you are the foolish troll around here. You should be banned from this site for trying to turn this blog into a toilet.
"That's Bloomberg's $30,000,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 kids. Imagine the happiness Bloomberg will have created."
How much of your net worth have you given to the starving kids in Africa? Perhaps you should come down off your moral soap-box and put your money where your mouth is, hypocrite.
Sell your home, the computer you use to troll, and all your other possessions and send them to the kids in Africa.
It's simple arithmetic after all…
"Sorry you lose the debate because your mind is 1/1,000,000,000 or 10^-9 cubic meters of slush."
"You suffer from innumeracy like most libertarians do. "
"selfish Libertarian"
"can't do simple arithmetic."
"You should be banned from this site for trying to turn this blog into a toilet."
Hypocrite.
Imagine 3,000,000 hungry undernourished. homeless children in America, Africa and Gaza each given $10,000. That's Bloomberg's $30,000,000,000 divided by 3,000,000 kids.
Stupid lib troll. Sure, you could do it once. And then there would be no more Bloombergs. And the increase in poverty and homelessness in the world that would result would be even greater than that which would be relieved by your ignorant one-time leftist act of theft.
Are you hoping that nobody would know that your new policy is responsible for the new poverty? I would tell them.
Or do you have a policy for dealing with me, too?
Liberals are thieving scum.
"How much of your net worth have you given to the starving kids in Africa?"
I can ask you the same question. That's a phoney argument, troll.
cpurick,
You are also a toilet troll to call me "scum". You, too, should be banned. This blog attracts the ugliest, rudest elements of society, sorry to say. I'm retired so I have the time. You don't have to work either, I take it. Or are you wasting time at work that should be put to productive use to make your boss some money? Who is your boss, so I can inform her of your extracurricular activities while you are at work? No wonder are country is in a depression with loafers like you guys. Japanese would never tolerate that kind of bad juvenile behavior at the workplace.
"How much of your net worth have you given to the starving kids in Africa?"
I can ask you the same question. That's a phoney argument, troll.
Posted by: TrUmPiT | Jan 9, 2009 10:47:52 AM
Bull. And you know it. I'm not the one who has made the argument that someone ought to give up their net worth to feed the hungry.
Answer the question.
"You, too, should be banned. This blog attracts the ugliest, rudest elements of society,"
Speak for yourself.