Arkady's Thoughts

Austan Goolsbee's selection  is not a failure just because it is blatant nepotism, but because Austan is replacing Romer after she butchered the deficit with the monstrosity known the "stimulus package" despite the fact that Austan has been Obama's economic adviser since day one!  It does not require a giant mental leap to conclude that Austan's economic advising must have been taking place during the creation, writing and implementation of the stimulus.  So why would our president, whose job is it to staff positions properly, fill the role with exactly the same people that have failed us.  Why does he insist on pushing the Keynesian spend-to-stimulate approach despite it's demonstrable failure? Oh!  I know why, here it is... Goolsbee, 41, will succeed Christina Romer. A senior administration official said Goolsbee is a team player who can navigate the White House and is a skilled television interviewee who can help the president promote his economic ...

Although a double tap should have done it, yet Murkowski brushed aside Alaskan voters who chose Joe Miller and is now brushing aside Alaska's Libertarian Party .   First, let me be the first to say that the discussions over having Murkowski run on the Libertarian ticket went on for far too long.  How can a group representing constitutional limited government ever consider a porker like Murkowski?   That conversation should have lasted 2 minutes and gone something like this: Murkowski:  Hey guys, I am your best chance at winning a Senate seat ever - support me. Libertarian Party:  We are armed. No, but seriously, what was there to consider?  An insider politician supporting TARP and proudly announcing industry support due to her exceptional skill of shoveling pork into Alaska.  At that rate, Obama would make a great Libertarian candidate too. So what now?  Instead of acknowledging the political winds and the will of the Alaskan people, in...

One of Peter Orszag's first messages after leaving the public sector was to advise his former boss to extend the Bush cuts for two more years.  Ideally he would prefer to extend the cuts only for the middle class, but despite his liberal desires has come to a sober realization. Why does this combination make sense? The answer is that over the medium term, the tax cuts are simply not affordable. Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned. Talk about a rock and a hard place. So despite his Keynesian ways, Orszag admits that a tax increase (essentially what the expiration would amount to) would damage jobs.  His populist desires compel him to suggest we keep these cuts for the middle class only, yet he realizes  the wealthy keep this economy moving.  This is essentially a microcosm of the age-old debate between conservative and liberal thin...

The left's favorite Nobel prize winning liberal economist is busy on the propaganda trail in a vain attempt to bolster his own image.   Where shall we start?  It is no secret that Krugman is one of the most prominent and well known economists pushing for the Stimulus back in 2008.   With the architect of the Stimulus, Christina Romer, now admitting defeat - the left is mobilizing marketing forces to explain the failure. In Krugman's recent diatribe, our hero explains the failure and like a 5 year old school boy proudly announces " I told you !".  This little ego stroke points to a previous article where Krugman warns America that the Stimulus appears to be small and therefore could fail.   This is of course fascinating because central planning always fails, so Krugman positions himself in a very fortunate situation, he can always say "I told you" as a stimulus of any size will fail.  Yet, just two months before, he wrote on November 10, 2008 . So we...

Late breaking news, Tony Blair attempts to set the record straight by letting us know what he really believes about George W. Bush in this latest Politico piece .  As always, partisan hacks provide hours of amusement in the comment section and I encourage you to explore the banter in order to get a glimpse of the utterly pathetic state of intellectual discourse in this country. Other than the obviously superficial, is Tony Blair correct?  While the frenetic left relished in insulting Bush due to his perceived "stupidity" it largely pertained to his speaking and communication ability, see, they wanted an intellectual elite much like what we have right now in the White House.  Yet do you believe the hallmark of a great leader is one that communicates to the masses as opposed to an elite upper crust of society much like Hamilton once envisioned?  Sure Bush made a few speaking errors and may have waved to Stevie Wonder, but if the Bush haters cons...

While berating and ridiculing waste in the Federal government is a favorite activity of many fiscal conservatives, one has to be reminded that in modern day America profligacy and waste are rampant through all levels of public service.  Massachusetts state budget is a monster always deserving of attention sporting a hefty 51+ Billion dollar spending spree as recently as last year, but it would be simply unfair to focus on state spending alone.  Especially in a system where every lower form of government becomes subservient to it's master through grants, favors, subsidies and other form of financial witchcraft.  Here in Massachusetts certain town are recipients of state funding, funding that is collected from other towns in a perverse form of distribution that simply encourages mismanaged towns to continue the errors of their ways.  Of course this distribution does not necessarily siphon funds from wealthier towns to poorer towns, although that is more often the cas...

At last, the war in Iraq is coming to an end .  While troops will remain in Iraq until December 2011, they will no longer be serving a combat function.  Instead focus will now shift to training the Iraqi forces so that domestic forces can handle their own affairs.  History will be the ultimate judge of whether it was in America's best interest to sacrifice 4,400 of our bravest along with tens of thousands more wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars of money we do not actually have and scores of Iraqis caught in collateral damage.   Unfortunately it will prove to just as difficult to gauge the success of the war as it was to understand the original goal behind our presence.  Wars have additional costs beyond the lost lives, wounded families and financial burdens - they create a mental and emotional investment that is impossible to walk away from. For every single soldier killed, every innocent Iraqi lost and every dollar spent it becomes impossible ...