A Rare Links Post
















4.  The individual responsibility story of the day, via Overlawyered











  • random walker

    Nice cartoon. It would be more accurate if the "Jobs" Obama is knitting was smaller than the "Jobs" unraveled from the private sector's back.

  • gdn

    "This picture is the best single explanation of what is wrong with the stimulus jobs creation numbers â€” the stimulus money comes from somewhere, and starves efficient businesses of capital in favor of politically connected endeavors."

    In some cases it is literal and direct. I have an acquaintance who subcontracts in the defense industry. She told me that she's going to lose half her positions next year. I was puzzled as I thought that there weren't cutbacks in that area. She grimaced and said there aren't...as part of the stimulus package the government was converting the positions to direct employment add to their saved jobs report.

  • IgotBupkis

    > Dog bites man: Paul Krugman still a political hack ...

    Dog bites man indeed. I think this fact became evident years ago.

  • Nota Bene

    Not to suggest I disagree with the general concept, but unemployment isn't a problem right now with people not *seeking* jobs. They just aren't there to be had.

    I am a trained and very talented professional, but, on paper, I'm at the lower end of the "let's hire" scale. I'm older, and there is the automatic presumption of my skills and abilities being dated. They're wrong, but if I can't even get the HR people to pass me along to be *interviewed* right now by the Decision Makers, I can hardly make that case to potential employers. I have applied for literally hundreds of jobs and gotten virtually no interviews for a good nine months.

    OTOH, all of my work history for 25+ years is professional. That means that I can't GET other non-profession related employment. Why should they hire a professional who "six weeks after I hire you, you'll get a much better paying job in your profession?". And YES, in the past, I've actually had someone tell me that, after agreeing that they had no doubt whatsoever I had the ability to do the job in question. And that was when the unemployment level was much lower. Now that same company has its choice of workers. So they're even less likely to consider me.

    My UBs are around a quarter of my professional salary, and no benefits. It's enough to keep me from being homeless and starving, but not much else.

    UBs in the USA are not sufficient, I don't believe, to discourage anyone from finding work if it is available.

  • Steve Jean

    The one mistake writers often make is to call capitalism a â€œsystem.â€ Capitalism is the un-system. It is the lack of a system. It is the natural self-organization of individuals when they freely follow their own self-interest.

    Hear, hear!

    Too many people, who generally see the benefits of market freedom, fall for this trap when starting a political argument--which is a bit like starting a football game in sudden-death mode, giving the opponent possession of the ball in the red zone, and letting the other team pick which players you get to use.

    Naturally, the opponent then gets to challenge you to "come up with a better system," at which point you are forced accept his premise that there must be people in charge who organize, make rules, and enforce the rules. Then you get to defend such a perversion of "capitalism" to the point where you must contradict yourself or make weak excuses because you lack the strength of principles.

    In a similar vein, accepting terms like "sweat shops" and "wage slaves" (which you address in your next article) means you get to defend this alleged slavery and victimization, or compromise on freedom to avoid the appearance of such.

    Another trick is to argue about "deregulation" by looking at the affects of "deregulation" on decidedly non-free markets (like Freddy and Fannie). After the subprime mortgage disaster and TARP abominations, I found trying to discuss such matters with non-libertarians about as productive as trying to nail jello to the wall.