Howes (The Detroit News) on Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 11:34 AM 'The Elite' turning on BHO's misguided economic 'policies'
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/danielhowesblog/index.php You know it's shaping up to be another crappy week for Team Obama and it's economic management when the lefty elite gather in Aspen ... and trash the president's economic policies (or what passes for them, anyway). Lloyd Grove, editor-at-large for The Daily Beast, offers this gem from the Aspen Idea Festival, sponsored by Atlantic Monthly mag and the Aspen Institute. In it, he quotes the much-quoted Niall Ferguson, the Harvard economist-turned-historian (and native Briton) who knows a thing or two about decline. "If you're asking if the United States is about to become a socialist state, I'd say it's actually about to become a European state, with the expansiveness of the welfare system and the progressive tax system like what we've already experienced in Western Europe," Ferguson told Monday's kickoff session. Grove says the Harvard prof offered "a withering critique of Obama's economic policies, which he claimed were encouraging laziness." Ferguson continued: "The curse of longterm unemployment is that if you pay people to do nothing, they'll find themselves doing nothing for very long periods of time. Long-term unemployment is at an all-time high in the United States, and it is a direct consequence of a misconceived public policy. Can I say that, having grown up in a declining empire, I do not recommend it. It's just not a lot of fun actually -- decline." The emperor, it appears, is scantily clad, but only now are his most ardent subjects beginning to recognize his sartorial minimalism for what it is. It's probably not overstatement to suggest the president is losing his hold on an influential chunk of his base -- you know, the same people who a) can write big checks because b) they know how to make money running businesses themselves and booking profits doing it. Can't be pro-growth and anti-business, as the NYT's Tom Friedman wrote, astonishingly, last month. Can't extend government support to the unemployed for the longest period since the Great Depression and wonder if there isn't a connection to why more people aren't working. (See A-1 story in today's WSJ on the intensifying debate.) Can't meddle with health-care, financial regulation, the vast energy market and trash business and then wonder why business isn't hiring. Which, of course, is why the White House is clearly trying this week to pivot to "growth" and bolstering exports to divert attention from increasingly withering attacks on the counter-productivity of BHO's economic populism. It isn't working and it doesn't build confidence, which is why consumers are wary about spending and businesses are wary about hiring. It's pretty simple. >From The Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/danielhowesblog/index.php#ixzz0u9GD28FA _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
