The admirable (?) honesty of Paul Krugman

Two quotations from the end of The Conscience of a Liberal that affected me, apparently, quite differently than they did my liberal/progressive friends. (What a surprise!)

Quotation one:

I believe in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law.

The key question: who, exactly, decides what is too wealthy or too poor? And since Krugman so idolizes the egalitarian nature of other western societies with extensive welfare states (Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan), let's just see how many billionaires Forbes can find around the world:

Argentina: 1
Australia: 14
Austria: 4
Belgium: 2
Belize: 1
Brazil: 18
Canada: 25
Chile: 4
China (!): 42
Colombia: 2
Cyprus: 2
Czech Republic: 1
Denmark: 1
Egypt: 4
France: 14
Germany: 59
Greece: 4
Hong Kong: 26
Iceland: 2
India: 53
Indonesia: 4
Ireland: 6
Israel: 9
Italy: 1
Japan: 11
Kazakhstan: 6
Kuwait: 4
Lebanon: 6
Malaysia: 8
Mexico: 10
Monaco: 1
Netherlands: 5
New Zealand: 4
Nigeria: 1
Norway: 4
Oman: 1
Philippines: 2
Poland: 6
Portugal: 4
Romania: 2
Russia: 87
Saudi Arabia: 13
Singapore: 5
South Africa: 4
South Korea: 12
Spain: 18
Sweden (!!): 10
Switzerland: 9
Taiwan: 7
Thailand: 3
Turkey: 35
Ukraine: 7
United Arab Emirates: 6
United Kingdom: 35
United States: 469
Venezuela: 2

Total billionaires outside US: 628
Total billionaires EU (+Great Britain): 174
The list of the world's 25 wealthiest people includes only 4 from the US, but 7 from Russia, and 7 from the EU

What's interesting about this list is that apparently no industrialized nation on Earth considers a billion dollars too much wealth for its citizens to possess, and that in even the most confiscationist, assertively egalitarian states like China or Sweden have generated billionaires. Krugman would no doubt suggest that this means confiscationist taxation doesn't prevent the amassing of wealth; I would suggest that it proves that the super-rich are essentially immune to national schemes of taxation.

(This category would include #97--George Soros [$9 billion]; #463--Oprah Winfrey [$2.5 billion]; #785--Marc Rich [$1.5 billion].)

Quotation number two:

The notion, beloved of political pundits, that we can make progress through bipartisan consensus is simply foolish. On health care reform, which is the first domestic priority for progressives, there’s no way to achieve a bipartisan compromise between Repulbicans who want to strangle Medicare and Democrats who want guaranteed health insurance for all.

Here, essentially, Krugman is either saying that for some political/social ends justify the means; or that in order to achieve social justice we cannot afford an effective political opposition that requires compromise; or at least that virtually everybody who is not a liberal/progressive can and should be safely stereotyped as un-American.

Some conscience.

This is the man who argues that, even as a political philosophy, conservatism is grounded in racism, and that individual virtue (saving and budgeting as opposed to rampant consumerist spending) must be regulated by the government lest it become public vice, and ruins the economy.

The real danger of Paul Krugman's ideological extremism--which is a far cry from the liberalism of the New Deal that he purports to adore--is that he has adopted the exact counterpart of the worst of social conservative exterminationist talk: our political opponents are not American citizens with different opinions to be respected, but enemies to be vanquished.

Yep, some conscience.

Everybody who disagrees with me is a racist plutocrat who wants children to starve and die.

Oh well, at least he's honest.

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...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

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