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Comments |
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 | Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 0:40:46 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: William B.
E-mail: wbeaumo1(at)gmail.com
Since I didn't get an answer to this question a couple weeks back, I'll try asking it again (not meaning to be a pain, I just really want an answer):
Is there any truth to the claim that, had TARP not been rushed through Congress, the U.S. financial system was very close to collapsing entirely (I've heard it stated as "days away from collapse")? If this were true, then it's difficult to argue for laissez-faire since one must agree that before the system could recover on its own, without any government intervention or bailouts, there would first have to be a period of total chaos. Unemployment would be far higher than it is today, more big companies would fail, and the dominoes would just keep falling until everyone is in misery. There would be recovery eventually, but the thought of that intermediate period of chaos is enough to make one wish there were another way.
In other words, my question is: is short-term total chaos inevitable if we wish to truly fix the financial system and have a long-term recovery? |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 1:25:55 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: tamarindox
E-mail: acpatagnan(at)yahoo.com
When did the government started intervening the economy? Since then the government will continue to do that until a certain man, an elected President along with the elected representative will dismantle all those interventioning laws slowly and gradually. Of course, short term solution will temporarily halt the collapse. But in the long run the American people need to do something, |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 3:30:07 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Rory Hodgson
E-mail: cowboybebop(at)ntlworld.com
I had a simple question about coconuts:
If you want coconut products (milk, oil, shredddings/flakes, etc), how easy is it to take a store-bought coconut and process it? |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 3:32:53 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Tom Rowland
E-mail: atlasfan(at)earthlink.net
My take as a layman not specifically educated in economics beyond reading a great deal of MIses. Of course things were bad. All you need to do is begin, as you did, with just one of the current conditions -- the foreclosure on thousands of homes -- and project the consequences -- consequences that actually took place. Banks stop lending money, business and others can't continue supporting themselves, customers stop shopping, etc, growing in its effects over time as people that were able to pay there mortgage last month, can't this month because the business that they had worked for could no longer meet the payroll.
BUT... that's what did happen. And to whatever extent the bandage has managed to stop the flow of blood in the streets, it has already set up the next problem -- hyperinflation. Those of us who advocate laissez-faire do not believe that we have had an undistorted economy since at least the progressive era. During that era, for example, J. p. Morgan was castigated as an "inside trader" for doing privately and by mutually beneficial agreement more or less exactly what the government did -- bailed out some companies that he believed were fundamentally sound with his own money. What is the difference? Force, the use of the independent unforced judgment of a mind willing to risk his own money to save a viable business, vs. a diffuse bureaucracy who knows little about running a business.
Here's a short little rule of thumb I use to sort things out. If it's a good idea -- profitable is the standard here -- it will get done cheaper and faster by individuals who have a vested interest in the outcome. Those that disagree are free to compete. If it has to be forced on people -- if people are not free to disagree, it's a bad idea.
So the answer to your question is "no, short term chaos is not inevitable so long as we leave men like J.P. Morgan free to raise the barn. It 's not the bailout that is the problem, it's that we aren't free to raise the barn if we find it in our own self interest. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 5:34:06 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Mike
E-mail: mikedialj(at)netscape.net
Here's about the best theory I've ever heard on how the dragon became the symbol of China. I like it because I once studied Chinese language and culture, because it jibes with what I know about both the Indians of the Pacific Northwest and kings in Europe, and because it gives me another perspective on our country.
We sometimes forget that our country is the only country in the world founded on ideas. Specifically, the
ideas that our country was founded on are those of the American Enlightenment: that we are capable of understanding everything that exists and that, given liberty, we are capable and worthy of pursuing our own lives and happiness.
On the other hand, here's how most other countries in the world were formed: local tribes clashed until one
tribe had bashed enough heads in that their tribal chief became king over the all other local tribes. Later, these kings clashed until one had beaten all other kings into submission, thereby becoming emperor. That's why kings and emperors are the most murderous figures in history.
Ancient tribes in China each had a totem, today seen in the Chinese zodiac: the hare, the chicken, the snake, the monkey, the rat, the ox, the tiger, the horse, the ram, the dog, and the pig. When the first emperor united the kingdoms that had united the tribes of China, he needed a symbol of unity that even peasants who were being kept illiterate could understand. Hence, the dragon, an imaginary creature much different from a European dragon, with the head of a horse, the whiskers of the hare, the nose of a pig, the horns of ram, the body of a snake, the feet of the chicken, and so forth.
The tribes that eventually migrated from Asia to the North American continent did the same thing, albeit less
elegantly, by creating the totem pole.
I like to think of the eagle as the symbol not of our country, but of our government. Benjamin Franklin
reportedly lobbied for the turkey to be our symbol, but the bird that won out was the eagle. We can eat
chickens, chickens produce eggs, we can eat turkeys, carrier pigeons can deliver messages, canaries can warn
miners of danger. The ornamental eagle, however, is useless for human purposes, and merely preys on useful birds. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 6:25:09 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Rory Hodgson
E-mail: cowboybebop(at)ntlworld.com
Mike: That's pretty damn interesting. Which book/site did you learn that from?
As a note, I'm not too sure how to describe it, but there is something distinctive about the Western European development from Feudal lords to a King with a Government, to just a Government under the law. I mean, specifically, what it was that was driving the Government/King below the law.
I mean, the funny thing is, things tended to be introduced (e.g. Common Law, Constitutions of Clarendon, Doomsday Book) which would bring the Government below the law, because it actually meant more power over the country -- that is, one might centralise the law and then place the King further and further below the law, but only because it meant a more integrated and easier to rule country.
Basically, they were ambitious like any power-grubbing Lord, but their altruistic belief in their subservience to the People, which grew over time (though I'm not sure why; perhaps it was that, if they were given a bunch of rules and restrictions from the previous King, they were unwilling to challenge them, it being part of the State they inherited) led to them enacting more rules which reduced the Dictatorial power of the Government, but still with an eye to being the Big Boss. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 6:34:52 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
William B, we don't know what actually would have happened had there not been the capital injections, it's important to point out that there has long been significant government intervention in financial markets. The implicit and explicit support of both the Federal Reserve and FDIC, among others, enabled the financial system to become so leveraged in the first place. My best guess had the capital injections not occurred is that there may have been a deeper recession and credit market freeze, but it would have passed more quickly. As it is right now, we are primed for a slow recovery and a huge debt that will lead to another dive sometime in the future.
It's also interesting to note that TARP has never actually been used in the manner Congress intended. It was supposed to be used to buy "toxic assets" from banks. After Britain started making direct capital injections into their banks, we followed suit. TARP's original purpose has somewhat been followed in other programs (e.g. the TALF program set up by the Federal Reserve), but the point here is that the government didn't really have a clue what was going on or what to do about it.
A legitimate question is whether some type of government intervention is necessary to undo what government intervention has created, though the practical difficulty here (setting aside philosophical issues) is how such intervention would stop. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 10:51:33 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: BrianS
"Is there any truth to the claim that, had TARP not been rushed through Congress, the U.S. financial system was very close to collapsing entirely (I've heard it stated as "days away from collapse")?"
The only way to ascertain whether a conclusion is true is to look at the facts presented in support of it. So, on what basis did such claimants make this assertion in the first place? Have they presented any facts which warrant their conclusion?
Now I suspect the claim is not true, given that there were banks and other organizations which were robust rather than collapsing. Of course the govt tried to hide this fact by coercing ALL the major banks to accept its 'help' whether they wanted it or not. Why did the govt do this? So as to actually PREVENT the public from seeing that only some banks were having difficulties and thus to PREVENT the market from correcting itself through the act of individuals choosing to interact with those who managed money *well* rather than those who did *not*.
This is not to say the government should have just stood by and done nothing. It should have done something. But it should have done just the opposite of what it actually did do. Instead of propping up bad businesses by draining financially healthy businesses and healthy individuals of their wealth, thereby economically weakening even MORE people, it should have eliminated the governmental shackles on the banks. Doing so would allow the healthier banks to more easily pick up the pieces of the less healthy, dying or dead banks and would eliminate the distortions in the market which not only caused the problem in the first place but whose continuation will only cause the problem to worsen.
In other words, one definitely should NOT have been arguing for government *inaction* when the problem became apparent. One should have been arguing *very* strongly for government action - but in the form of *freeing* bankers from unjust govt control of their lives rather than arguing for even more unjust domination of their lives (not to mention the lives of all citizens through the theft of a truly mind-boggling amount of their money). And one should have been arguing that the govt act to remove other of its distorting interferences in the market as well, such as govt insurance of deposits, govt regulation of interest rates, etc. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 13:18:03 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Mike
E-mail: mikedialj(at)netscape.net
Rory, I read the theory in a Chinese text that my teacher lent me when I was studying Chinese. Of course, as the text admitted, there's no way to know for sure how the dragon came to symbolize China. The links I saw to totem poles and kingdoms around the world, however, made me think that that explanation makes the most sense. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 13:19:51 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Tim Lee
Regarding the factual basis for the claim that the financial system was very close to collapsing entirely, this Federal Reserve report has the overall position of the banking sector: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h3/Current/
In the first table, the column labeled "Nonborrowed" is the total reserves of all the banks in the U.S.
Notice the accelerating trend peaking at a negative -332 billion dollars in October 2008.
The fear that spooked the proponents of the TARP bill into action was that the bursting of the housing bubble was becoming a runaway deflationary process.
To better understand what this would mean, it is important to know something about the potential for deflation built into the structure of our banking system.
George Reisman explains the problem and the solution, in this article: "Our Financial House of Cards and How to Start Replacing It With Solid Gold", http://www.capitalism.net/articles/A_Blog_03_08.html#03_22_08 |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 13:37:35 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: Talamanca
E-mail: dohle.mark(at)gmail.com
URL: http://markdohle.wordpress.com/
I just finished reading "The Ominous Parallels" by Leonard Peikoff. I found it extremely and fascinating on so many levels. It is the most convincing example of the importance reason based on reality the Law of Identity that I have yet come across. His discussion of racism seemed very appropriate to our time and the appointment Sotomayor. I have only read one New York Times article, in the form of a speech by Sotomayor, but the article did revile an explicit epistemological parallel between the development of Nazi racism and Sotomayor.
Part of Sotomayor speech in New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?_r= ...
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
From "The Ominous Parallels"
Racial Subjectivism holds that a man's inborn racial constitution determines his mental processes, his intellectual outlook, his thought patterns, his feelings, his conclusions--- and that these conclusions, however well established, are valid only for members of a given race, who share the same underlying constitution. "Knowledge and truth," one Nazi explains, "are peculiarities originating in definite forms of consciousness, and hence attuned exclusively to the specific essence of their mother-consciousness." On this view, each race created its own truth (and, in effect, its own universe). There is no such thing as “the truth” in any issue, the truth which corresponds to the facts. There is only relative truth “for us” versus truth “for them,” German truth versus British truth, “Nordic science” versus “the Liberal-Jewish science," etc. p.64
….”An alien may be as critical as he wants to be,” states Carl Schmitt, “he may be intelligent in his endeavor, he may read books and write them, but he thinks and understands things differently because he belongs to a different kind, and he remains within the existential conditions of his own kind in every decisive thought.” (Schmitt was an influential political scientist and onetime communist, who ended as a leading Nazi theorist.) p.64-65
“[T]hinkers of the same races and predispositions will again and again ask the same questions and seek solutions in same direction,” writes the philosopher Tirala, one of the most sophisticated of the Nazi polylogists. “And, therefore, even in the field of logic, as the foundation of all sciences, differences must be acknowledged which force thinkers and men of science to take a definite position, not only to think in this or that way, but to work differently even in the realm of the purely formal.” P.65
In presenting this theory, Professor Tirala gives no indication of the nature of Aryan logical principles (nor does any other Nazi). His concern is to denounce, not define. What he denounces is Aristotelian logic. P.65
It is not that what she says isn't true, cultural upbringing does influence our method of thinking, but if that method is based on the subjective feeling of a race, it has no place in the Supreme Court. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 13:47:37 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: Talamanca
E-mail: dohle.mark(at)gmail.com
URL: http://markdohle.wordpress.com
I also just finished writing my first ever article. I tried to reduce it to an essential idea and focus, but it always seemed like there was background information required to justify my points. This led my to a few tangents, but I am overall satisfied with the content. I welcome any comments or suggestions, content, grammar, citations ect. The title is The Solution to Pollution: Cap and Trade vs Individual Rights.
The following is my introduction. Please visit my blog at http://markdohle.wordpress.com, if you are interested.
As a rational being I practice limiting waste, recycling, and using as little energy as possible. I prefer food that does not contain harmful pesticides or hormones that make my breasts grow. As a future engineer I hope to develop land in such a way as to make use of geothermal energy for climate control as well as solar and wind energy for power. I am interested in issues pertaining to the environment and other people’s rights, but I am not an environmentalist because I disagree with the regulatory policies commonly supported by environmentalists. I believe a more refined approach based on the protection of individual rights is a more viable solution to pollution.
The issue of pollution control is tied to two intertwined requirements of human life. 1) The need to produce life sustaining values from nature. 2) The need to be free in order to produce and use those values. The first requirement is impossible without the second, so when the production of one man’s values results in the creation of pollution that destroys the life (ultimate value) or property (acquired value) of another, he must be forced to control his waste... |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 14:38:16 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: Sterling
E-mail: blackcatmagnum(at)hotmail.com
URL: http://www.blackcatmagnum.com
"is short-term total chaos inevitable if we wish to truly fix the financial system and have a long-term recovery?"
The biggest fear in the wake of the explicit nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when Paulson decided to place them both in conservatorship and make the implicit Federal government guarantee of the mortgages an explicit one, was that every other major financial institution holding large amounts of mortgages would not be able to survive. That was at the heart of the meltdown.
A week after Fannie and Freddie, the rumors started swirling about Lehman Brothers, which they also had back in June and in March around the time of the investment bank's quarterly earnings announcements. The concern was not about earnings and income as much as their balance sheet and the massive exposure they had to mortgage-backed securities and other illiquid credit derivatives.
Once it was clear that Lehman wouldn't make it as a going-concern, there were many traders who believed Paulson and Bernanke would step in over that September weekend and force a shotgun marriage with Fed guarantees ala Bear Stearns, aka - a bailout of Lehman. On Sunday afternoon we learned that would not be happening, and the news of an inevitable Lehman bankruptcy that week set off concerns about AIG's ability to pay their counterparties for all the credit default swaps that would now be eligible for claims when Lehman went bankrupt. Concerns about the viability of Merrill Lynch accompanied these developments, as Merrill was the next largest investment bank after Lehman, and also had massive mortgage backed securities exposure. Bank of America stepped in as a white knight and rescued Merrill Lynch at the last moment that weekend. AIG was placed on an open-ended Federal Reserve life support system a few days later to allow it to unwind its credit default swaps. Ironically, the defaults and bankruptcies are going to be increasing for the next two years as a result of the economy going down the tubes from the government distortions all throughout the market. So will AIG's losses, and thus the Fed's commitments to AIG.
SO....it was ACTUALLY the moral hazard created by the Federal government and Federal Reserve Bank a few months before with the Bear Stearns bailout, combined with even greater moral hazard, the Fannie and Freddie nationalization, that led to the meltdown. Post-meltdown, we have nearly every major sector of the economy and several large states looking for the same relief. Moral hazard run amock.
Washington Mutual and Wachovia followed suit within a couple of weeks, being taken over by the FDIC and forced into shotgun marriages with money-center banks which received more Federal guarantees of the liabilities of the two institutions. Both banks have balance sheets that are carrying enormous amounts of second-lien, home equity loans that have no real collateral backing them.
The concern when Paulson went to Congress with the TARP, was that if the ratings agencies downgraded the debt for the rest of the financial institutions to reflect the risk implied by the outright collapse of so many others at that time, then the entire system would end up going into a "death spiral". That theoretical scenario included runs on all banks, healthy or not, and a complete freeze of all credit throughout the system. The ratings downgrades would lead to major disruptions in the capital base of the insurance industry, and that could lead to real behavior changes in the physical economy, with even basic functions of commerce being too risky for many companies to engage in. That is where the "short-term chaos" would have erupted.
The Federal government stepped in, and injected the money to prevent this, or at least slow it down. Ironically, since the U.S. government was already in a huge deficit, it was borrowing all the money for the TARP -- 100% of it. History will prove someday that this was an event that can only be done ONCE, because if the U.S. government tries it again with its current deficit and overall debt, there is no way the markets will believe it, or give it any credit.
We will soon see if the TARP actually saved the economy from the short-term chaos. Likely within the next 24 months or so. It is also quite possible, even likely, that all it did was put a few patches over the cracks to prevent the dam from bursting right before the election. The fissures are wide and deep, and while the psychology may have shifted somewhat after "stress-tests" of the banks, and Obama coming in to place an all-in bet and spending borrowed money like nothing's wrong...the same fundamental problems remain. Home prices are still dropping, unemployment is still rising to dangerous levels, and the balance sheets of the banks still carry trillions of dollars in loans that will never be repaid. Most of those inevitable loan losses have not been accounted for or provisioned yet. The change is FASB rules, and the shadow bailout of the banks from the Fed via AIG CDS payouts glossed over the difficulties in March and April. Confidence is fickle. Reality always has a way of stepping in and re-establishing the natural order. This time, with the Federal government seeing its revenue base shrinking rapidly, interest rates increasing for future debt issuance, and the U.S. central bank carrying many trillions of dollars in mortgages, mortgage backed securities, and debt guarantees for banks' portfolios of still more credit derivatives and insurance...the writing is clearly on the wall about the source of the next financial collapse.
That's all before we even get to the automotive companies and parts suppliers. ;)
Unless Obama can repeal the laws of mathematics, or shame the Chinese into a cramdown like he did the Chrysler bondholders, he will end up presiding over a collapse that will make 2008 look like a stroll in the park. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 15:02:38 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: Rory Hodgson
E-mail: cowboybebop(at)ntlworld.com
I have one week left of term, and this Philosophy of Mind paper is driving me nuts. Anyone want to help me with Locke's theory of personal identity? :) |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 15:25:00 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: Tim Lee
"The biggest fear in the wake of the explicit nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when Paulson decided to place them both in conservatorship and make the implicit Federal government guarantee of the mortgages an explicit one, was that every other major financial institution holding large amounts of mortgages would not be able to survive. That was at the heart of the meltdown."
Here's what confuses me: isn't it true that the markets have for some time priced the implicit Federal government guarantee for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as if it was real? So how does making that guarantee real change the price structure, and therefore the profitability expectations of other financial institutions? |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 18:13:02 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Tim,
Note that the Treasury made the implicit guarantees of FNMA and FHLMC explicit, but only for the debt. There are a lot of banks who had bought the preferred stock (essentially junior debt) under the same premise who saw their interests wiped out when the Treasury didn't stand behind that debt. The problem created here was that an implicit guarantee can be taken away arbitrarily. Also witness the GM and Chrysler debacles. At issue here is government distortion played a major role in getting the financial sector into the mess it was in back in September and October of last year. That is one reason why I do think it is legitimate to ask whether some form of government intervention is necessary in order for government to extract itself from the mess it created. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 19:53:20 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: Tim Lee
KPO'M, thank you for your very clear answer. |
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| Sunday, June 21, 2009 at 20:04:54 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: KPO'M
E-mail: ka84796(at)comcast.net
Just what we need, an even stronger FTC:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-tec-bloggers-freeb ... |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 at 10:48:24 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: Anthony
Is there any truth to the claim that GM would have gone bankrupt had it not been bailed out? Of course. Does that mean that short-term total chaos was inevitable? No.
The US government needs to go bankrupt. Its legitimate liabilities exceed its legitimate assets, and it has virtually *zero* legitimate income. But that doesn't mean total chaos is inevitable. Chaos will result to the extent the moochers and looters are allowed to cause it. If the financial system collapses before a new, rational government is in place (most likely in a hyperinflationary spiral), total chaos is a strong possibility. If a rational government is in place to keep the peace first, chaos will be kept to a minimum. |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 at 11:41:36 mst
Comment ID: #20
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
One of the things I like about Mark Steyn is his ability to draw disparate cultural venues into a single, hilarious whole. Today, he's guest-hosting on Limbaugh. And talking about the pulitzer prize winning reporting coming out of CBS and their breathtaking coverage on "The ONE and His Excellent Ice Cream Saga!!!!"
Then he quotes from the "Weekly Standard" commenting on CBS's News' Twitter by Mark Knoller. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/a_real_false_ch ...
A Real False Choice: War or Ice Cream
CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller has been doing some in-depth reporting on the president's trip to an ice cream parlor this afternoon. He reports that "Obama had vanilla frozen custard in a cup with hot fudge and toasted almonds." He reports that "Sasha had a Brownie sundae: vanilla frozen yogurt, hot fudge, cherry, sprinkles and whipped cream (which she asked Dad to scrape off)." He reports that "Malia had vanilla frozen custart in a waffle cone." And, "You're gonna laff: Obama & the girls actually bought Frozen Puppy pops for Bo: flavors: pumpkin, peanut butter and yogurt…"
When some twitterers complained that maybe President Obama's time could be better spent given the crisis in Iran, Knoller responded, "Surprised by the outrage at the ice cream outing. What is it you expect or want the US to do about Iran? Attack? War?"
I must say that is the False Alternative par excellence.
Then Steyn continues by mentioning English Comedian, Eddie Izzard's bit, "Cake? OR DEATH!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg
And follows that up with the piece de resistance;
"Ice cream or war, ice cream or war. Can't we have a little compromise here? Can't we at least have
WAR A'La MODE?" |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 at 11:41:37 mst
Comment ID: #21
Name: C Andrew
E-mail: ca4papen(at)mindspring.com
One of the things I like about Mark Steyn is his ability to draw disparate cultural venues into a single, hilarious whole. Today, he's guest-hosting on Limbaugh. And talking about the pulitzer prize winning reporting coming out of CBS and their breathtaking coverage on "The ONE and His Excellent Ice Cream Saga!!!!"
Then he quotes from the "Weekly Standard" commenting on CBS's News' Twitter by Mark Knoller. http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/a_real_false_ch ...
A Real False Choice: War or Ice Cream
CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller has been doing some in-depth reporting on the president's trip to an ice cream parlor this afternoon. He reports that "Obama had vanilla frozen custard in a cup with hot fudge and toasted almonds." He reports that "Sasha had a Brownie sundae: vanilla frozen yogurt, hot fudge, cherry, sprinkles and whipped cream (which she asked Dad to scrape off)." He reports that "Malia had vanilla frozen custart in a waffle cone." And, "You're gonna laff: Obama & the girls actually bought Frozen Puppy pops for Bo: flavors: pumpkin, peanut butter and yogurt…"
When some twitterers complained that maybe President Obama's time could be better spent given the crisis in Iran, Knoller responded, "Surprised by the outrage at the ice cream outing. What is it you expect or want the US to do about Iran? Attack? War?"
I must say that is the False Alternative par excellence.
Then Steyn continues by mentioning English Comedian, Eddie Izzard's bit, "Cake? OR DEATH!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZVjKlBCvhg
And follows that up with the piece de resistance;
"Ice cream or war, ice cream or war. Can't we have a little compromise here? Can't we at least have
WAR A'La MODE?" |
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| Monday, June 22, 2009 at 20:54:00 mst
Comment ID: #22
Name: anon
The unholy alliance between the statist left and the religious right? It's starting...
http://www.youtube.com/user/Garmoco |
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| Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 10:47:05 mst
Comment ID: #23
Name: Tim Lee
Speaking of unholy alliances, this campaign unites political opponents from the left and right to fight global warming: http://www.wecansolveit.org/content/pages/204
Notice the type for the 'we' logo: it's designed to read 'me' if you flip the first letter upside down. The implied message: altruism is good, and the opposite of egoism. More than that, only altruism can solve the problems of environmentalism. |
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