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Thursday, December 17, 2009

NY Times' Douthat: Lessons in Obamanomics

Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times columnist, blogs today on Obamanomics:
The hand-in-glove relationship between a Democratic administration and certain precincts of corporate America is one of the major stories of the Obama era. And if you want to know why the Department of Energy has become a venture capital firm, or what happened to Barack Obama’s pledge to allow American consumers to buy their drugs from overseas, or why the health care bill looks, well, the way it looks, Carney’s book is a good place to start.

Carney is more stringently libertarian than I am — more anti-TARP, for instance, and more thoroughgoingly critical of the welfare state in general. But his kind of libertarian populism is a important counterweight to what’s been happening in Washington across the last twelve months. His analysis represents the cogent version of the inchoate angst that’s gripped the conservative base of late.

1 comment:

whomanbein said...

Democracy? Please avoid that misrepresentation. Constitutional Republic.
Thank you for sharing. I hope you sell more books.
The free market system and Democracy are only possible in an environment where property rights are secure. Who pays for this security? The middle class. Even for property (real,intellectual), in other countries. Treaties/ consulates/ ambassadors). Corporate welfare? Not by popular vote. The first property the people need to secure is our bodies,health care. A flat tax would be the first real step toward true Democracy. If any individual could only own five percent of any one corporation and corporations could not own other corporations. Assets must be payed out to investors. Owners must be personally responsible for the actions of the company, who knows. Would business abandon us? Not for long. Would small businesses keep us competitive in the world? I believe so. The only way to correct our moral compass in this country is to stop the fundamental hypocrisy. As we become more educated we will naturally be more ill at ease with our own inequities.(Most of us). Pie in the sky? Gotta have goals. Did our founding fathers really start something, or is that B.S. to?