Monday, February 8, 2010

Spot the Disconnect.

Click here to read the entire piece from which the redacted paragraph below comes.

5. President Palin?
At one point on Saturday, some disgruntled
Tennessee tea-party activists held a press conference to complain about the cost of attending the event ($549 per person), which they say excluded many supporters. But when asked whether they begrudged Sarah Palin her reported $100,000 speaking fee, they blanched. "Of course not. I love Sarah Palin, we - I think it's safe to say we - all love Sarah Palin," said one of those complaining about ticket prices that presumably helped to pay for her keynote speech. A gushing love of Palin was, in fact, a major point of consensus at the convention. And she loved them right back. "America is ready for another revolution!" she enthused as the audience popped to their feet for the first of many ovations.

10 comments:

Thai said...

Mercenaries come in all flavors ;-)

By the way, I am not sure if you have been following the following series of Krugman postings on the crisis with the European PIGS? If not, I think they are very instructive to help understand America (you probably already understand this stuff better than I).

First there is this post on the difference between trade deficits and the budget deficits.

It got me thinking about this whole dollar issue/gold issue which led me to the following post which I found quite helpful.

Notice that Krugman mentions that now would be a great time for Spain to devalue (e.g. gold skyrocket vs. a theoretical Spanish currency which no longer exists) but as they cannot- unless they pull out of the Euro- they will simply have to face deflation.

This got me wondering where America stood with its trade deficit and external debt. Hell's point that we will not spoil the golden goose created of foreign capital seems a good one.

I found the following link and if you click on the last column box several times, you can rank it by highest to lowest.

... I find it fascinating the the Scandinavian countries have much higher external debt as % GDP than either US, Italy or Greece.

Is this a sign that foreigner's trust Scandinavian's more than they trust anyone else?

I think I will bring this up on SD if you don't mind.

Be well

Edwardo said...

Thanks for the links, Thai.

I generally can't abide that Keynesian miscreant Krugman. First of all, he refuses to treat with the idea of the marginal utility of debt, which, at this point in time, is much more important than absolute debt measures. He can't really acknowledge this though, because it essentially sunders his deficit spending posture. For me, that is what makes him obnoxious. He must be aware of the marginal capacity of debt problem, but he acts as if it is of no consequence.

Suffice it to say that with respect to the U.S. financial position, the marginal capacity of debt looms like a giant, very old oak tree over a dainty summer cottage located on the southern coast of the U.S. , if you catch my drift?

I can well believe that Krugman would advise Spain to devalue. It may well be a sensible thing to do, but because the Krug is, for the most part, an apologist for the domestic business as usual crowd, he would never advocate any such harsh medicine here. This too is galling.

The author of the article on the dollar makes a good point about how it could behave in the next year or two and why. I don't necessarily agree, but but more importantly is this rather misleading question.

Is the collapse of the dollar inevitable?

The dollar has been in a steady state of erosion for far far longer than the author recognizes. The question is will the dollar cease to be a viable medium of exchange altogether? Most would rate that as an almost non-existent outcome of our present predicament. Is the dollar destined to become, in short, the stuff of outhouses and wheel barrels? For me the odds of that happening are far higher than they ought to be.

DED said...

Getting back to the Tea Party convention, it's my understanding that there are, in fact, several "tea parties." They haven't been integrated together as there's a whole lot of power grabbing going on. At least one of them was just a front for Dick Armey's lobbying firm.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Edwardo said...

There seems to be some division amongst the Tea Party ranks. I would like to believe that, and perhaps it's true. However, until I see more evidence of it, I will treat the rumors with skepticism.

Edwardo said...

Oops. I left out a necessary question mark.

There seems to be some division amongst the Tea Party ranks? I would like to believe that, and perhaps it's true. However, until I see more evidence of it, I will treat the rumors with skepticism.

DED said...

I wish I could remember where I read that. This article isn't it but it's a start. If I find it, I'll be sure to post it here.

DED said...

While many were enamored of Palin, others within the Tea Party movement were not.

DED said...

The Houston Tea Party Movement is unhappy with some other Tea Party leader.

DED said...

Even RedState.com thinks the Tea Party movement is out of control.