If you want to understand how liberals view the relationship between individuals and the government, compare their reactions to the Solyndra scandal to their statements on Social Security reform.
Earlier this month, Solyndra, the solar panel maker that received $535 million in federal loan guarantees and was touted as the symbol of President Obama's "green jobs" initiative, declared bankruptcy and had its offices raided by the FBI.
The failure of a company Obama described as "a true engine of economic growth" has raised obvious questions about the advisability of squandering taxpayer money on such endeavors. But Obama's surrogates have countered by arguing that failure is merely a natural byproduct of progress.
"The reason why fledgling, cutting-edge industries need this kind of assistance is because they can be high risk as well as high reward," White House press secretary Jay Carney said. He also observed that "what happened here is an investment did not pan out."
On Sept. 14, administration officials appearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is investigating the Solyndra loan guarantees, made a similar case.
"Support for innovative technologies comes with inherent risks," testified Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Department of Energy's loan guarantee program.
Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, also drove this point home. "I think it is the nature of backing innovative technologies that there are technology risks in some situations, market risk," he said.
Yet back in 2005, when Obama was in the U.S. Senate fighting President Bush's efforts to reform Social Security in the Senate, he offered a much different perspective on risk.
"Part of what the president calls an ownership society is really a society in which we do not have social insurance and each of us are on our own, managing risks and returns in the free marketplace," Obama explained at an appearance at the National Press Club. "There's a proud lineage to such thinking. I just happen to think it's wrong."
During the 2008 campaign, Obama said that Bush-style Social Security reform "would gamble the retirement plans of millions of Americans on the stock market."
In reality, the Bush proposal didn't involve government gambling taxpayer money. It gave younger workers the option of investing a portion of their payroll taxes in personal accounts, choosing among investment funds rather than random stocks.
But looking beyond Obama's distortions, his comments have fresh meaning in the wake of the Solyndra scandal and provide insight into what he and his fellow liberals consider appropriate risk.
Obama thinks it's OK for government to risk taxpayer money on business ventures that he deems worthy of investment. But he's outraged at the suggestion that younger Americans be allowed to have more control over the allocation of their own tax dollars.
This derives from the liberal belief that a central authority run by experts will spend money intelligently (in the case of Solyndra, by jump-starting alternative energy), whereas individuals will act irresponsibly if left to their own devices (in the case of Social Security reform, by blowing their retirement on personal accounts).
Experience teaches us differently. Like many failed government ventures before it, Solyndra was a case in which ideologically driven geniuses doled out money to a well-connected company despite repeated red flags that its business model was fatally flawed. And Social Security is insolvent even though government experts have increased the payroll tax rate that finances the program 20 times since its inception.
Beyond acknowledging this reality, a free society should recognize the moral distinction between individuals putting their own money at risk and government bureaucrats playing venture capitalists with taxpayer dollars.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/22/2011 8:23 Comments ||
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#2
If you look at the daily yield curve, you can see that QE3 is doing about what it was expected to do.
Yesterday, the 1 yield T-instrument was yielding 0.09%; today it is at 0.11% while the 30 year went from 3.2% to 3.03%. The dollar rose against other currencies.
In the grand scheme of things, this isn't enough to get really worked up about. Banks will have to work a bit harder to make income (instead of living fat on the yield curve). Gold and oil will decline slightly (as opposed to QE2 which basically raised the price of gold and oil).
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
09/22/2011 11:24 Comments ||
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#3
The Dow Jones Induatrial Average dropped 400 points thus far today, and world markets -- whatever that means -- dropped 4%. Granted, markets have been pretty touchy, so perhaps this isn't anything more than that.
A nicely thorough reminder of what a horror the man and his regime were. President George W. Bush made the right call in 2003. I look forward to seeing something similar about Col. Moammar Kadaffy in a few years.
#2
There is little doubt that the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was faulty, mostly because of Saddamâs continuing attempts to convince Iran that he still maintained a potent WMD capacity despite years of sanctions.
Really?"Since 2003 Coalition have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent."
That's degraded militarized agent. This was material that was suppose to have been destroyed in accordance with the first Gulf War cease fire agreement a decade prior. I'm sure those who tsk-tsk the quality of those weapons would be the first to object to their storage in their neighborhood, city, or locale. Non-militarized home made sarin was employed in 1995 in Tokyo.
The meme just has a life of its own. Say it loud enough, long enough and people will think its true.
#3
"How can the left still criticize Bush's decision to take out Saddam?"
Is that a serious or a rhetorical question? If the former, then because they see the actual cost (in lives and money both) of the invasion, not the hypothetical cost of a non-invasion.
You may call that a short-sighted perspective if you so believe it to be; but you can't be be confused about why 'the left' criticizes Bush's decision: the left makes it clear why they criticize it -- they don't believe the cost-benefit analysis justified it.
"Gaddafi was the control experiment and it was the US left that correctly decided to terminate it because it turned dangerous."
I'm pessimistic about the chances of Libya either way, but there was significantly less expenditure of American lives and money in Libya than there was in Iraq. The cost-benefit equation is significantly different (even though I'm not sure said equation favoured the Libyan intervention either).
This is a serious question. Note that I didn't mention nation building, just the decision to take out Saddam.
If anything Saddam was less rational and less susceptible to deterrence than Gaddafi. So a diplomatic settlement with Saddam would have unraveled faster than the Gaddafi accord.
Also remember that this was after 9/11, an attack directly linked to Iraq(*), and that by 2003 the US had been at war with Iraq for over a decade.
So yes. I'm serious. None other than George W Bush implemented the leftist policy of diplomacy&grand bargain with Gaddafi and the result was a failure. This is what the leftist Obama administration has admitted by taking out Gaddafi using military means.
(*)Al Quaida's stated reason were the sanctions against & the military containment of Iraq.
#6
There's a link to the Duelfer report in the article. Just reading the Addendum is an eye-popper - for example, all the Iraqi state technology sites that were found stripped of all equipment. I'm sure many of you remember the reports of truck convoys to Syria around the time of the invasion.
We fully expected to find WMD. The troops even wore their bio gear. The Duelfer report recommended that investigation be resumed once the security situation improved. Why hasn't that happened?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
