{"id":20546,"date":"2011-06-14T05:45:39","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T11:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20546"},"modified":"2011-06-14T06:11:40","modified_gmt":"2011-06-14T12:11:40","slug":"diagnosis-incoherence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=20546","title":{"rendered":"Diagnosis: Incoherence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever “progressives” start trying to argue “logic”, my ears perk up. \u00a0Because it’s virtually inevitable that no logic will ensue.<\/p>\n

Myles Spicer- blurbed as a “retired ad agency executive” –\u00a0proves that advertising is about emotions, not logic<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Clearly, the greatest threat to the reelection of Barack Obama is the economy — the struggle to create more jobs.<\/p>\n

Polls confirm that only 37 percent of Americans believe Obama is improving the economy. Fueling those doubts is the conservative rant about job creation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’m no retired executive, but I’m going to guesss that “fuelling those doubts” is the fact that 9% of us are out of work, as many more are underemployed or checked out completely, we’re paying $4 a gallon for gas and more for heat and food prices are zooming and our mortgages are underwater and used car prices, or used parts to fix our beaters are out of sight due to “cash for clunkers” and our retirement accounts are shrinking and taxes are rising and those of us who have jobs are being told our companies may drop our health insurance and our local governments are jacking up property taxes to buy electric cars and artistic water\u00a0fountains\u00a0even as food prices zoom upward thanks.<\/p>\n

Just saying.<\/p>\n

Trouble is, this rant is inconsistent with their other rants — like the one that holds “government doesn’t create jobs, only the private sector can.” And there’s also their contention that jobs are created by the wealthy, who must be stimulated and rewarded to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spicer is, himself, inconsistent with the liberal rant that “laws are for peasants”.<\/p>\n

Wait – that’s not a standard rant?<\/p>\n

Either are “government doesn’t create jobs” and “only the wealthy create jobs”. \u00a0 Conservatives know government can create jobs; they’re just not sustainable, except via ratcheting up taxes.<\/p>\n

Entrepreneurs? \u00a0They <\/em>create sustainable jobs. \u00a0Entrepreneurs don’t have <\/em>to be wealthy – they’re frequently not – but then, what’s the point of doing all that work without the chance of becoming <\/em>wealthy?<\/p>\n

Anyway – whenever “progressives” think they’ve found they found a hole in the logic of the free market, it’s hard to stop yourself from going “oh, that’s so cute and precocious”:<\/p>\n

This leaves a gaping hole in conservative logic when they blame Obama for the weakness in our economy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The mantra of Republicans and conservatives has always been to bless the private sector and urge government to “get out of the way, and let capitalism work.” Great! Then where are the jobs?<\/p>\n

It has been the private sector (not government or Obama) that has brought us to this malaise, if not crisis, and it is the private sector that is not helping us out of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In Mr.Spicer’s special little world, the government never inflated the mortgage bubble by socializing the risk, forcing Fanny and Freddie to underwrite most of this nation’s mortgage market, to “promote home ownership”.<\/p>\n

Never happened, Winston.<\/p>\n

Conservatives claim that government interference, especially taxation, is impeding our recovery; they just have no basis in fact. There is nothing at all that is preventing, obstructing, retarding or impeding American business from creating jobs … except American business itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taxes have been lower than ever. Interest rates are low. Regulation is generally lax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three statements so vague as to be meaningless. Some taxes are low,and many others are not<\/a>. \u00a0Interest rates are low, but paradoxically credit is difficult to get. Regulations are lax, unless they aren’t.<\/p>\n

Republican administrations ran the government for eight of the past 10 years. Major American corporations are loaded with cash, but they have learned that they can scrape along with higher productivity by stressing their existing staff rather than adding jobs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One wonders how Mr. Spicer ran his “advertising agency”. “Sure, things are slow – let’s hire lots of designers, so we’ll be ready when the work picks up!”<\/p>\n

Conservatives and the business community claim that “uncertainty” is harming job creation. Give me a break.<\/p>\n

If you think today’s environment is “uncertain,” you did not live in the Depression. You missed World War II. You forgot about the times when mortgage rates got up to 20 percent. You skipped the turmoil and discontent of the Vietnam War.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fact, in the context of history, today’s times are more tranquil and predictable than most. “Uncertainty” is a cop-out.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What a boss Mr. Spicer must have been. “You think shaving the 401K contribution is bad? \u00a0No,the Donner party was bad! \u00a0The sinking of the Titanic was bad! \u00a0Oh,\u00a0Auschwitz! That <\/em>was bad!<\/p>\n

One needn’t “forget” bad times to observe that times are bad.<\/p>\n

What, then, about the claim that taxes are job-destroyers? We have, in fact, been operating under all the previous Bush tax cuts for 10 years now (the lowest in decades), and look where that has taken us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m predicting “to gusts of non-sequitur”…<\/p>\n

Deficits have soared, no new taxes have been imposed, yet the wealthy among us seem not to be creating the promised jobs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah. \u00a0Because times are fantastic!<\/p>\n

Rubbish. \u00a0As peoples’ personal finances are dragged down by their plummeting home values and skyrocketing cost of living, consumer spending is in the tank.<\/p>\n

Who – besides Mr. Spicer, apparently – would break the bank hiring right now?<\/p>\n

No, I’m not putting words in his mouth:<\/p>\n

However, there is one area where government actually can create jobs: within the government itself. But here again, conservative policies have actually created unemployment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Spicer seems unable to recognize the difference between a horse that pulls the cart and a horse that sits on the wagon, depending on another horse to pull the cart.<\/p>\n

Solutions are complex, but doable. But demonizing government and blaming President Obama, as conservatives are doing (especially the early Republican presidential candidates), is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst, and destructive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, he got the “solutions are complex” bit right.<\/p>\n

The rest? \u00a0“Shut up, peasants! \u00a0The State is your mother!”<\/p>\n

Thanks, but no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever “progressives” start trying to argue “logic”, my ears perk up. \u00a0Because it’s virtually inevitable that no logic will ensue. Myles Spicer- blurbed as a “retired ad agency executive” –\u00a0proves that advertising is about emotions, not logic: Clearly, the greatest threat to the reelection of Barack Obama is the economy — the struggle to create […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","category-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20551,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20546\/revisions\/20551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}