Shlaes Reminds Us of the Cost of Government Arrogance

Excellent piece today by Amity Shlaes, disabusing us of our current New Deal nostalgia. Did you know, for example, that FDR set the price of gold daily at his breakfast table, based upon his own "lucky numbers?" (Shlaes' latest book, "The Forgotten Man" is up there on my reading list for '09.)

Make no mistake: Barack Obama, often compared to FDR on the basis of his nascent popularity and his big spending plans, has absolutely no idea how to fix the American economy. He and his administration minions will "experiment" and tinker like Roosevelt, because, like Roosevelt, they are supremely confident in their own competence.

Shlaes reminds us of the remarkable arrogance and folly of such an approach.

The answer to economic growth is simple. Get out of the way. Animal spirits in the marketplace create growth, not government. Government redistributes resources via coercion, which produces nothing at its best and destroys productive resources at its worst.

Sadly, it seems likely that we will have to suffer for at least 24 months, until the midterm Congressional elections, and perhaps more, if the Republican Party cannot rid itself of its pathetic, grasping leadership and return to its roots in classical free market economics and limited constitutional government.

Will Canada Show America the Way?

Great, educational piece by Theo Caldwell up there in the Great White North about Canada debating tax cuts and economic growth. The Canadians are pondering real solutions to economic woes, while America ponders the cult of Obama and his big-spending brain trust. Goh, Canada!

Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) Nothing More than a Slush Fund

In addition to the secretive manner in which the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money has been spent by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, we now have the possibility that the "vision thing"-challenged Bush Administration will use TARP for other bailouts, such as providing cash to the Big Three car makers.

Can anyone doubt now that TARP is -- and always was given its loose wording and its even looser execution -- nothing more than a political slush fund? And an expensive one at that. Future generations will paying one of the most expensive bills ever for one to two years worth of political gain for Washington politicians.

To break that "gain" down even further, this political slush fund allows the Democrats to derive marvelous benefits at low to no political cost, thanks to the Stupid Party.

Congressional Democrats vote for the auto bailout, but it gets killed in the Senate. Enter the eager to please President Bush, who has already accepted his abuse for the bank failures, very much the fault of Congressional Democrats. Now he stupidly pays the political cost with the rest of America for bailing out Detroit. We're sure the UAW will vote Republican next time around, right? (Michigan Representative Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican, after his fierce attacks on TARP, continues to disappoint with his rationalizations of using TARP or other bailouts to save Detroit.)

And then there is the persistently lucky Barack Obama, who is handed this expensive slush fund at no political cost to him as he takes office.

Didn't the cheerleaders in the financial press, such as the editors of the Wall Street Journal, see any of this coming? The lesson here: the business of America's government is not business. It is national defense, in the strict sense. The rest is subject to endless permutation, manipulation and stupidity.

Obedience, or Abuse in Mother Theresa's Order?

Years ago I would have listened to this fascinating interview between John Batchelor and former Missionary of Charity Collette Livermore and thought she was obviously "proud" and under the influence of dark forces. (Download Hour 3 from the web page, and begin the podcast at 19:25 for the interview.)

Now, after years of my own struggles with the human dimensions of Catholicism in particular cultural forms, I see Livermore on a journey of painful inquiry much like my own, over what is proper for Roman Catholicism.

Livermore made a commitment as a young girl to help the poor by joining Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity in India. But she could not stay on, due to the pain the order's superiors inflicted upon her.

As she recounts in the above radio interview, and in greater detail in her new book, Hope Endures, her efforts to help the poor were attacked for bureaucratic reasons, and for authoritarian ones. Her motives were portrayed constantly as being more prideful than charitable.

No one can know for sure. Not even her superiors, by the way.

This woman, now a secular doctor, strikes me as sincere and of good will. She was clearly stunned by her superiors' constant guessing at and demeaning her motives. One gets the sense that in this environment, authority became a license to abuse.

It's not an uncommon story. Rarely do the humans who inhabit saints' religious orders share the "charism" of the founder. The question Livermore raises however, is did these abusive individuals do their acts of uncharity with the approval of Mother Theresa? Because Mother Theresa felt such humiliation was a refuge from the greater problem of doubt?

Better to live in uncertainty about your own worth, than God's worth in your life?

The question is briefly touched upon in the interview. But I sense from it that there is no definitive answer, only speculation.

I'll leave it to the Church to decide how this story affects Mother Theresa's case for sainthood. From my perspective however, the ability to live with doubt, questioning, even being scandalized by evil in the world and the inscrutable nature of the First Cause's universe is all part of the essential struggle of faith and reason. One almost gets used to it as the background noise of a life in pursuit of God.

I can't speak for the ultimate conclusions of Livermore's book, which I will have to read. But, this interview angers me, because I care about religion, and don't like the idea that unjustified, unverifiable, and ultimately codependent acts of humiliation would be used as an answer to doubt.

Eminent Domain and the Struggling New York Times

Interesting story that the New York Times is mortgaging its new building in Manhattan to keep itself afloat.

What might be forgotten is that New York City officials used eminent domain to kick successful businesses out of that same space the Times building now occupies, in Manhattan's Theater District, in the name of "economic development."

Perhaps these officials assumed, aside from their own infallibility, that the New York Times would never be subject to economic difficulties, or would never go out of business.

But exactly what is the definition of "success" for economic development? If there is one, can the Times now be said to be hitting those targets?

The arrogance of central planners on display.

Photo used courtesy of Freefoto.com.

An Eloquent Editorial

Bravo to the editors of The New Criterion for an eloquent editorial regarding the gradual loss of freedom (or, rise of government paternalism) in the United States.

Excellent reading.

The problem is not the fault of any one party. It is the result of a "fatal conceit" by the ruling class in Washington and the States for decades that all things, from who should own homes to steroids in baseball, fall under their purview. Nothing escapes the scrutiny of our deeply "concerned," selfless politicians.