Andrew WhiteWatching CNBC’s coverage of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s grilling of Hank Paulson, and I mean grilling – they are rude, abusive and down right stupid. Democrats (mostly) are grilling Paulson, the then head of the treasury, on his role in “saving the world” or more precisely, the global financial systems. What a fiasco – again. Idiots – with no knowledge of basic economics, or in favor of political scapegoats and points who want to gloss over economics, are claiming cheap points against people who a) were in the greatest pickle we are likely to know in a lifetime, that b) had no road map to read to tell them what to do, who c) had to fly by the seat of the pants in order to save the financial system.
Dan Burton (D) just asked of Paulson, “you say that your concern was to save the world, and yet we see more than 9% unemployment”. Well, what a bright spark that guy is. We have 9% (or more) and we will see more – because there is a recession that is, thankfully, NOT a depression. Please, we pay taxes to keep idiots like Burton employed. We ought to increase unemployment by one – right now. There were no obvious answers; there were no help lines to call. Was the response perfect? No. Was there any illegal action? Not that we know of.
These politicians want a scapegoat – and they are gunning for Paulson. Cheap political points.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Haggard July 16, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Relax… take a deep breath… or just break something. Regardless, I have no sympathy for Paulson.
2 Anthony Bradley July 16, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Welcome to the two party system where party takes precendent over country. It happens on both sides. The republicans were writing big checks to Bush to wage war in Iraq and yet when President Obama put a spending bill in place to actually invest in America every single republican in the Senate voted against it. It seems not even a looming depression can get the republicans to spend at home. Not while a democrat is president at least.
IMO, though, this is our fault. It isn’t the two party system that is to blame but the two party citizenry. If we as the citizenry, were objective and considered the debate (or controversy) from the two party politicians to make an informed decision, then they would not go so awry. But we have a two party citizenry where many people also choose party over country. That is the problem.
3 Andrew White July 16, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Well said Anthony. In fact I read, albeit after the election for the President, The Myth of the Rational Voter. It all to simply explains how Obama got elected; and also how Tony Blair managed to get elected in the UK (though 12 years of Conservative rule over there ended up just as quirky an overly long sting from Obama’s predecessor. Power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. But, for the few of us that care about such things, the book if a good read. Here is my book-of-the-month summary for it:
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies, by Bryan Caplan, Princeton University Press, 2007. I wish I had read this before the US election! The book nicely explains – and predicts – how the average “Joe” will vote within the confines of a large, bland population. The bottom line is that the more educated a person is the more likely that the person is likely to vote along the lines expressed by the majority of economists; the less educated the person the less likely this correlation exists and the more likely that popular policies get adopted by all parties. Of course, this is what happens in most countries where democracy works: the average “Joe” get’s what they asked for. The book also explains nicely the phenomena where you see your neighbor, stacked up to the eyeballs with cars, flat screen TVs, boats, lake-side houses, still votes for a party that promises tax hikes for the rich: it is socially desirable to “look good” in the eyes of his peers even though he has not chance of actually impacting the local vote. Lots of data to back up the analysis – good read, and timely before a major election. 7 out of 10.