I'm Starting to like McCain More

I do find it discouraging when the only candidate open to changing with the times in any specific way is the 71 year old Republican. Against a backdrop of Clinton and Obama peddling change as an ethos more than a plan, McCain goes to a group of people hardest hit by free trade and tells them that they really do need to change:

"I think the answer is to understand that, free trade or not, we are in an information and technology revolution," he said. "So we want people to be part of that revolution, and we've got to be part of that new economy, rather than try to cling to an old economy."

A world apart from the constant use of verbs without objects by the Democrats. "HOPE," "CHANGE!" Hope for what? Change to what? At least McCain gave an example.

Doom and Gloom, No More!

I have never been one to believe that humans beings are rational animals, and though I have no formal training in their field, I think economists would agree with me. Bryan Caplan has a column at Reason that unpacks 4 ingrained human prejudices about the economy. The column is excellent though will require a bit more thought to discuss at length, but I will point to one section for the purposes of ego padding:

The danger of the make-work bias is easiest to see in Europe, where labor market regulation to “save jobs” has produced decades of high unemployment. But we can see it in the U.S. as well, especially in our massive employment lawsuit industry. The hard lesson to learn is that giving people “rights to their jobs” is a drain on productivity—and makes employers think twice about hiring people in the first place.

I'm sure I had a post mentioning this.

"Apres moi le deluge!" Greenspan on Bush

If you needed any more confirmation that Bush is not a conservative, and indeed has no comprehension of what the term conservative means, then the newly released book by Alan Greenspan should suffice. The New York Time has a synopsis.

When you run a party which has to appease intellectually dim religious fanatics with money to run programs that serve no purpose and indeed make us a more ignorant and backward country then there can't be an expectation of fiscal restraint. And much like the war in Iraq, when the Dems take office and we reap the consequences Bush will score a propaganda victory. And also much like the war Bush's attachement to ideology got in the way of sound decision making. He's the "Decider"... unfortunately. Rajiv Chandrasekeran's book on Iraq describes this in detail. Although he, and now probably Greenspan, must just be hysterical liberals because for them the family values agenda doesn't trump all.