Showing posts with label Tim Carney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim Carney. Show all posts

Friday, December 25, 2015

To Tim Carney, the soul of the Republican Party in 2015 and beyond boils down to (mere) materialism

Here, without the mere:

"More broadly, the rising tide against Ex-Im exemplified a nascent Republican move away from corporate welfare. Marco Rubio led the fight to block an insurer bailout through Obamacare. Ted Cruz is leading in Iowa polls while unambiguously pledging to kill the ethanol mandate. Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and most of the rest of the field also feel compelled to inveigh against corporate welfare, even if they don't oppose it in every specific instance. There's a long way for the party to go, but they're at least marching in the right direction, because they're no longer always marching to K Street's tune. ... Dole, Lott, subsidized exporters and ethanol executives will have all the material blessings they need at Christmas. But conservatives will have a much stronger hold on the soul of the Republican Party than they did just 10 years ago, and that's something they can be happy about."

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"Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people 'I offer you a good time,' Hitler has said to them 'I offer you struggle, danger and death,' and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet." -- George Orwell, 1940

Friday, January 3, 2014

Government Just Made Two Things You Liked Obsolete: Your Health Insurance And The Lightbulb

Tim Carney, here, says the government ban on the traditional lightbulb is a case of crony capitalism in which industry persuaded government to help it increase energy efficiencies profits by eliminating the bulbs which consumers preferred in order to give them bulbs they didn't want but which cost a lot more, boosting profits they couldn't otherwise make.

You know, just like ObamaCare gives you coverages you neither want nor need and makes your insurance much more expensive than it used to be, and forces everyone to buy it. Insurance companies are happy to get all the new customers, and all the extra profits.

Big business is the enemy of Americans, and of capitalism. Unfortunately, so is the government.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Middle Class In Flames: All The Fed Has Done Is Help The Banks

Naked Capitalism supports Occupy Wall Street. Heh, heh. Does Jeep know?
Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism, here:

Oh, puhleeze. Robust recovery for who? The Fed not only threw staggering amounts of firepower at salvaging bank balance sheets, while showing no interest in rescuing ordinary Americans. It was also all-in on the Administration’s program to paper over the banks’ chain of title problems and their widespread servicing abuses, and didn’t bother to obtain any meaningful concessions or reforms, the most important of which would have been principal modifications, a remedy favored by investors as well as homeowners. The Fed has been all too happy to accept mission creep rather than speak up forcefully for the need for more fiscal stimulus.

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The analysis is right, but the prescriptions are left: raising the minimum wage, breaking mortgage contracts, and spending money we do not have. Oh, puhleeze. It's Naked Liberalism.

But she's great on Obama's Mussolini-style corporatism, most recently here in response to The New Republic:

I’m actually a bit miffed that Konczal treats the “corporatism” appellation as the sole property of the right wing (in the style sheet of the Vichy Left, calling them “hysterics” is redundant but necessary for the rubes), since I have a prior claim. And what is particularly rich is that Konczal apparently regards the allusion to Mussolini to be unfair . . ..

Obamacare IS corporatist. Here we have the industries that are significant contributors to why the American medical system is so overpriced – the health insurers and Big Pharma – actually playing a major role in writing the legislation. And how is it not a sop to large companies to have the government require that citizens buy your product or else pay large tax penalties? Mr. Market certainly thought so, for the price of health insurer and drug company stocks jumped the day the ACA passed. And remember, the beneficiaries of Obamacare extend beyond the insurers and pharmaceutical makers. Hospitals, who increasingly engage in oligopoly pricing (most surgeries need to be done in hospitals), also come out even stronger because new requirements imposed on doctors’ practices will make it difficult for a retiring MD who practices medicine, as opposed to servicing the rich (e.g., cosmetic surgeons) to sell their business to anyone other than a hospital.

And the label fits in the banking arena like a glove. I’ve ... called both the Bush, but far more often the Obama bank-friendly policies “Mussolini-style corporatism” since 2008, and well before what [Mike] Konczal [of The New Republic] claims is the origin of this description, Tim Carney’s book Obamanomics, published November 30, 2009.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Libertarian Freaks In Virginia Hate Cuccinelli's Social Conservatism, Funded By Former Cato Institute President

Tim Carney reports, here:

Purple PAC, a political action committee headed by Libertarian Ed Crane, former president of the Cato Institute, announced Oct. 25 it would spend $300,000 to back Sarvis. And many Beltway politicos with libertarian leanings are backing Sarvis and expressing disgust for Cuccinelli.

Why are libertarians working so hard against Cuccinelli, who is probably the most libertarian statewide official in Virginia in recent history?

I suspect identity politics plays a role.

I asked Sarvis why a libertarian should oppose Cuccinelli, and the first words out of his mouth were “social issues.” Crane’s only critique of Cuccinelli when announcing the $300,000 buy for Sarvis: “Ken Cuccinelli is a socially intolerant, hard-right conservative with little respect for civil liberties.”

Cuccinelli is undoubtedly conservative. He’s an observant Catholic with seven children and a home-schooling wife. He’s a hero to the pro-life cause and an opponent of gay marriage.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Obama To Expand American-Style Fascism Into All Corners Of The Economy

The partnership between government and business gets ever closer under Obama, whose socialism still routinely lacks the qualifier "National" in the popular press, as Tim Carney reports here:


Obama plans to use the Export-Import Bank -- a federal agency that gives taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign buyers who buy American goods -- to subsidize U.S. manufacturers even when they are selling to other American companies.

This would be a significant step in the federal government's transformation into a venture capital firm and investment bank involved in all corners of the economy. It's private profit and public risk. Conservative Sen. Jim DeMint calls it "venture socialism." ...


Big Business loves all these forays into venture socialism. The Chamber of Commerce lapped up the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Detroit bailout, the stimulus, the infrastructure bank and Build America Bonds. The chamber also was the key lobbying force to win over Republicans during Ex-Im's reauthorization earlier this year.

Banks, of course, enjoy the opportunity to reap profits while taxpayers bear the risk.

This broad support from the manufacturing and finance sectors makes government underwriting very popular in Washington. Politicians get to steer the flow of money to the sectors they like while making their lobbyist friends and campaign donors happy.


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Tim Carney Draws Blood and Larry Kudlow Proves it By Losing His Cool

Kudlow didn't like being exposed for a hypocrite, and beat up on the young guy (video here) just to show who's in charge, but the point still stands:

Republicans shill for high finance and free trade at the expense of Main Street and American manufacturing workers. Protestations that government must not pick winners and losers to the contrary, it's high time in this country that American business and American government started picking America to win instead of some libertarian notion of the bottom line, which is poison to our communities.

Tim Carney speaks up against it here, noting how Rick Santorum's populism has rankled Kudlow.