Nathaniel Ward » Bailout

Obamacare, TARP and the Separation of Powers

Nathaniel Ward — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:55:41 +0000

Charles Kesler has an important article in the May 17 issue of National Review (republished online over at Claremont Conservative) on the importance of constitutionalism. The penultimate paragraph highlights the importance of restoring the Constitution to its rightful place:

In the current crisis, conservative efforts to restore the separation of powers may even be more important than a campaign to shore up federalism. TARP, for example, was an unprecedented delegation of legislative power to the Treasury secretary, of all people. It was a desperate, essentially lawless grant resembling the ancient Roman dictatorship, except that the Romans wisely confined their dictators to six-month terms. Obamacare is a 2,000-page monstrosity that will need thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of pages of additional regulations before it can operate. These will be issued by more than a hundred new bureaucracies, each a source of unaccountable power wielded over individual Americans. These multiplying centers of petty tyranny will accelerate our transformation from a republic of laws to a corrupt regime of muddled and ever more arbitrary power.

What I’m Reading — October 5th

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Fixing ‘Too Big to Fail.’ "During the crisis it was often said that officials at the Federal Reserve and Treasury would do 'whatever it takes' to avoid a Great Depression. Now they must do whatever it takes to address one of the key causes of the financial crisis: the existence of financial institutions that consider themselves too big to fail – but which are run in such a way that they are bound to do so."
Why the Left Won’t Really Tackle Inequality.
Crowds Are Really Individuals. "What really happens in crowdsourcing as it is practiced in wide variety of contexts, from Wikipedia to open source to scientific research, is that a problem is broadcast to a large number of people with varying forms of expertise. Then individuals motivated by obsession, competition, money or all three apply their individual talent to creating a solution."
John Thune: Time for a TARP Exit Strategy. "It is time to bring an end to the TARP emergency measures and come up with an exit strategy to get government out of the business of running businesses. The administration owes the American people a timeline for how it will do this."
Nile Gariner on the Great Irish Surrender. "The Irish ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon will pave the way for the biggest erosion of national sovereignty in Europe since the Second World War."

What I’m Reading — September 14th

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:25:19 +0000

Class Warfare. Responding to hard times, governments around the world decide not to tighten their belts but to increase their revenues through punitive taxes.
Is This Really a Compromise? The Baucus proposal addresses superficial concerns but doesn't address the principal conservative complaint about the Left's health care plan: that it vastly increases the size and scope of the federal government.
Norman Podhoretz on Why Jews are Liberals. "[I]n virtually every instance of a clash between Jewish law and contemporary liberalism, it is the liberal creed that prevails for most American Jews. Which is to say that for them, liberalism has become more than a political outlook. It has for all practical purposes superseded Judaism and become a religion in its own right."
Tyler Cowen on Politics and the Economy. "But we are now injecting politics ever more deeply into the American economy, whether it be in finance or in sectors like health care. Not only have we failed to learn from our mistakes, but also we’re repeating them on an ever-larger scale."

What I’m Reading — September 6th

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 04:43:23 +0000

What Washingtonians Make.
The Cupcake Boom.
Mitch Daniels Explains the Need for Fiscal Responsibility in the States. "The coming state government reset will be particularly wrenching after the happy binge that preceded this recession. During the last decade, states increased their spending by an average of 6% per year, gusting to 8% during 2007-08. Much of the government institutions built up in those years will now have to be dismantled."
The Tories’ Privatization Scheme. It sounds like a fine idea, but the justification is a bit odd. Aren't there better reasons to privatize government-run industries other than short-term revenue gains? I hope and expect the Conservatives are making this point.

What I’m Reading — July 12th

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:04:46 +0000

Fisking President Obama. "There is a big difference between 'most severe … since the Great Depression' and 'comparable to the Great Depression.'"
Whatever happened to the Segway?
Is Asian Supremacy Inevitable? Debunking claims about Asia overtaking America and the West.

What I’m Reading — June 14th

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:56:20 +0000

Tyler Cowen on Health Care Reform. "The Obama administration is proposing that we start by spending more now so we can spend less later. This runs the risk of becoming the new voodoo economics."
The Next Urban Renewal Boondoggle. Bulldozing decaying cities may be good policy in some places. But if it's adopted at the federal level, it could be another in a long line of failed urban renewal policies.
Can Washington Be ‘Hands-Off’ With GM? "Many commentators worry that this new, nationalized GM will answer to politicians rather than profit and loss. They fear that this could lead to a $100 billion quagmire. Their fears are not without reason."

What I’m Reading — June 3rd

Nathaniel Ward — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:43:59 +0000

25 Ways Not to Get Rich.
Is This Really a Separate Field of Study? "Harvard University will endow a visiting professorship in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies, a position that, it believes, will be the first endowed, named chair in the subject at an American college."
The Man in Charge of GM. He is "a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry. Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born….Mr. Deese’s role is unusual for someone who is neither a formally trained economist nor a business school graduate, and who never spent much time flipping through the endless studies about the future of the American and Japanese auto industries."

The Federal ‘Investment’ in GM

Nathaniel Ward — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:21:33 +0000

Color me skeptical:

‘
After a planned GM bankruptcy, during which the company will seek to shed burdensome debts, the U.S. and Canadian governments will own 72.5 percent of the reorganized automaker. In addition, GM will owe the United States about $8 billion.

The United States could recover most of that investment by 2013, when, sources said, a Treasury projection shows the company would reach an equity value of $75 billion.

The government share, by then slightly diluted, would be worth about $46 billion. The $8 billion debt would have been repaid, and the government would have reaped billions in preferred-stock payments. Sources said the estimates are constantly being refined.

So government bureaucrats, who are spending other people’s money, are sanguine about the government “investment” in General Motors. By contrast, investors who are spending their own money are fleeing for the hills: the GM stock price has been in free-fall, closing the week at 75 cents a share. If the company’s recovery under nationalization were such a sure thing, wouldn’t the stock price be increasing, not decreasing?

What I’m Reading — May 25th

Nathaniel Ward — Tue, 26 May 2009 01:28:08 +0000

Spending Restraint? Never! "The New York Times says tax increases, not fiscal restraint, are the route out of recession. Their reasoning? Government will spend your money better than you will."
Words of Warning from 1940. Herbert Hoover: "Directly or indirectly they politically controlled credit, prices, production or industry, farmer and laborer. They devalued, pump-primed and deflated. They controlled private business by government competition, by regulation and by taxes. They met every failure with demands for more and more power and control."
E.J. Dionne on Obama’s Goals. Can President Obama create a new "centrist" alliance? And can a program really be called centrist if its principal aims are to make everyone more dependent on government?
Useful tips for writing subject lines.