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The Buckley Stops Here

Over the weekend I read Chris Buckley's Boomsday, and amusing novel to read just now. I stumbled over the following paragraph:
"The national situation continued to decline: plunging stock market, soaring prices, inflation running at 18 percent. This last factor, combined with six consecutive quarters of negative growth, officially signaled stagflation. The U.S. Treasury was furiously printing dollars, while the dollar itself had lost 40 percent of its value over the last six months. The Federal Reserve, meanswhile, had announced yet another hike in the discount rate, to 14 percent. Amid this calamitous economic news, the Congress adamantly--some said magnificently--refused to cut federal spending, with the result that the year's deficit was not projected at $1.1 trillion.
Ah, the good old days. When a $1.1 trillian deficit was so unthinkable that it was fodder for a satirical novel. It was disinclined to note this sign of the times on NLT, but then I read Buckley seems to be having second thoughts about his support for Obama.
"Hold on--there's a typo in that paragraph. "$3.6 trillion budget" can't be right.The entire national debt is--what--about $11 trillion? He can't actually be proposing to spend nearly one-third of that in one year, surely. Let me check. Hmm. He did. The Wall Street Journal notes that federal outlays in fiscal 2009 will rise to almost 30 percent of the gross national product. In language that even an innumerate English major such as myself can understand: The US government is now spending annually about one-third of what the entire US economy produces. As George Will would say, "Well."

Discussions - 7 Comments

GW grew the budget from 1.6 trillion to roughly 3.2, which means he doubled it during his tenure.

GW is the Republican bookend to LBJ for the Democrats. Both Texans came in with surpluses; both men waged war ineffectively; both Texans left widespread confusion in their wake. The similarities between both men are so striking as to positively eerie.

The market fixes value. However due to first Bush's interventions, and now Obama's, the market can't accurately establish value, because government is intervening in the market and doing so in a manner that is capricious, haphazard. As a result volatility occurs, and when volatility occurs due to an inability to establish value, capital seeks safe haven, which is what we're seeing, with the DOW plunging dramtically.

This is now Obama's doing. Obama could have arrested a budget careening wildly out of control, instead, he took his hands off the reins.

We're in trouble. Obama is not a student of history, and he's not well read. For all of his Ivy League credentials, the guy is painfully provincial.

Dan is right. Capital seeks safe haven. Capital is homeless. We want to give it a loan, but it is in over its head. The delirious sophistication of our dream of capital has overtaken us. Just as Rush Limbaugh has taught us that we never should have given loans to those poor black people, so too now we can say that we never should have given loans to capital itself. It played off appearances for too long. It has turned the illusion of the world against itself. We have to think past capital. But the political class is but an extension of capital, and so is helpless in such a domain. Thus we have a psycho-sensorial vortex of capital, televised for our viewing pleasure. The only consuming anyone is doing is consuming the visual image of the vortex of homeless capital spiraling down.

Fair enough. I read too quickly, and didn't catch the slip from deficit to budget. But we do now have a $1 trillian deficit, and will probably have one for several years. Compassionate conservatism was always Rockerfeller Republicanism with an evangelical face. The budget proves it.

But what, other than rank bigotry is behind the charge that Rush Limbaugh said "we never should have given loans to to those poor black people"?

If you have not yet read Iowahawks takedown of Buckley, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Link.

Just as Rush Limbaugh has taught us that we never should have given loans to those poor black people

For a person who likes to affect an air of intelligence, you are a remarkably stupid person and remarkably unafraid to show off that stupidity.

Richard,

I am glad to see some real perspective from a bloger here at "No Left Turns". For too long this site has been an apologetic, a mouthpiece for conservativism = GOP. Your frank admission is refreshing...

Stertinus is not stupid to call out the conservatives on their dog whistles. Like when Ann Coulter praised the white supremacists in her book. Even CPAC 'banned' the Council of Conservative Citizens, with a wink and a nod of course. Even the left wing MSM gave her a pass on that one.

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