{"id":40924,"date":"2014-01-02T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T18:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=40924"},"modified":"2014-04-28T11:55:32","modified_gmt":"2014-04-28T16:55:32","slug":"an-entire-economy-of-ahem-shots-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=40924","title":{"rendered":"An Entire Economy Of (Ahem) Shots In The Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our labor force participation rate is such that employment, for all the jabbering about the current ~7% rate, is scarcely better than it was in 2009.\u00a0 Investment is still glacial (except in the stock market – which is not the same as “investing in the economy”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kevin Williamson at the National Review may be the single best writer in America on the subject of government and its effect on the nation, the economy, and The People.\u00a0 He combines off-handed humor with blistering, airtight analysis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And as such, I highly recommend you read his New Years’ wrapup, “A Year of Fear<\/a>“.\u00a0 The whole thing is worth reading.\u00a0 But I’m pulling out the conclusion, about the effect\u00a0 uncertainty has in crippling an economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But wait”, lefties say; “my pension fund is going great guns!\u00a0 The Dow is over 15,000!”<\/p>\n

Yeah, it is.\u00a0 And that’s a little like seeing your car idling at 10,000 RPM and assuming that’s because it’s raring to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The conclusion is the big beef, here; I’m adding emphasis:<\/p>\n

The Obama administration has achieved a special distinction here: Investors are faced with considerable uncertainty vis-\u00e0-vis how it might interpret rules as compared with the Bush or Clinton administrations \u2014 and also about how it might interpret rules as compared with the Obama administration the day before yesterday. Now you see a mandate, now you don\u2019t. And as bad as it is in 2013, the seething hostility of Elizabeth Warren is ascendant on the left, a fact that offers very little encouragement to entrepreneurs and investors considering illiquid, long-term positions \u2014 things like factories, stores, and buildings, as opposed to easily liquidated investments in financial instruments<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another common lefty complaint?\u00a0 “Companies are too focused on profits!”<\/p>\n

Many on the left complain about the \u201cfinancialization\u201d of the U.S. economy, while unwittingly helping to encourage that very phenomenon. Given a choice between dividing up his investments between a couple of hedge funds and financial firms or locking it up for ten years in an assembly line in Indiana, a sane man will consider the question of uncertainty and predictability. And under current conditions, the assembly line is a risky bet.<\/p>\n

Perhaps 2014 will be the year in which we learn the value of predictability. Who can say?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Better yet, get an Obama supporter to read it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our labor force participation rate is such that employment, for all the jabbering about the current ~7% rate, is scarcely better than it was in 2009.\u00a0 Investment is still glacial (except in the stock market – which is not the same as “investing in the economy”.\u00a0 Kevin Williamson at the National Review may be the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,69],"tags":[289],"class_list":["post-40924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-socialism","tag-kevin-williamson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43421,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40924\/revisions\/43421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}