Coyote does the unthinkable ...

... which is deal with real economic data:

One problem with the stimulus bill is that it is so diffuse, so poorly understood, and so impossible to measure, that it will allow its supporters to claim anything about its effects. If no one knows what is in it, how do you measure effectiveness? Long recession? Those dang Republicans slowed the bill and kept the size too low. End of 2009 recovery? It’s because of the stimulus bill (never mind that the money will not have even really been spent). So, in the interests of setting a reasonable baseline, here is the pre-stimulus economic projections:

He then includes a comparison of ecnomic indicators now and in the early 1980s:

Back then, we responded with tax cuts and a focus by the President on reducing the size of government. Twenty-five years of prosperity followed. Today we are responding with a trillion dollars of money for government bureaucrats, increases in welfare, and pork for favored corporations. I am not hugely confident.

So the question, when evaluating the effectiveness of the stimulus package, is not whether the indicators go up, but whether the uptick exceeds that which the Philadelphia Federal Reserve predicted without any government action at all.

Once again, this disclaimer: I am not advocating a policy of complete government inaction (and if you want to know what I have advocated, go back and read it), but I am advocating for a bit more sophisticated dialogue over economics and modeling than we are currently being treated to by the likes of Paul Krugman and many of our liberal/progressive friends.

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

The Obligatory Libertarian Tax Day Post

The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?

New Warfare: I started my posts with a discussion.....

.....on Unrestricted warfare . The US Air force Institute for National Security Studies have developed a reasonable systems approach to deter non-state violent actors who they label as NSVA's. It is an exceptionally important report if we want to deter violent extremism and other potential violent actors that could threaten this nation and its security. It is THE report our political officials should be listening to to shape policy so that we do not become excessive in using force against those who do not agree with policy and dispute it with reason and normal non-violent civil disobedience. This report, should be carefully read by everyone really concerned with protecting civil liberties while deterring violent terrorism and I recommend if you are a professional you send your recommendations via e-mail at the link above so that either 1.) additional safeguards to civil liberties are included, or 2.) additional viable strategies can be used. Finally, one can only hope that politici...

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