George Will Quotes Milton Friedman to Defend Continuing Bush's Economic Policies
George Will quotes free-trader Milton Friedman to trash the idea of "shovel-ready" projects while continuing his defense of George Bush's economic policies. I'm guessing that George Will has refused to go within fifty feet of Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine since he holds Friedman in such high regard.
And Ed Gillespie, when even Murdoch's Wall Street Journal disagrees with your assertions, you're in trouble. From Jan. 2009--Bush On Jobs: The Worst Track Record On Record.
PODESTA: I want to come back to Eric Cantor, which is no cost, no jobs, no ideas. I mean, it seems to me that the Republican Party on the Hill has become the party of no.
Maybe I'd say that it looks, a little bit from his defense of no regulation that it's become the party of Bush, that we've seen how that movie played out. It ended in the in financial meltdown and the great recession. It seems that...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Is Ed Gillespie right that it's no risk?
WILL: What?
STEPHANOPOULOS: This strategy?
WILL: I think there is no risk at this point because I think the American people understand that the greatest job creation machine in the history of the world is a reasonably lightly taxed and lightly regulated economy. But one idea, John, that, happily, we're not hearing. When we began this year with...
PODESTA: George Bush had the lowest job creation since World War II, lightly taxed, lightly regulated...
GILLESPIE: Fifty-two months of uninterrupted job creation, the longest in the history of the United States of America.
PODESTA: ... major recession.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the one idea?
WILL: The one idea that we seem to have dropped, happily so -- remember the phrase was "shovel-ready"? We were going to create government jobs.
It put me in mind of a great story Milton Friedman used to tell. He went to Asia in the 1960s and was proudly taken by the government to see a public works project. They were building a canal. He was struck everyone was digging the canal with shovels. Friedman says, why no heavy earth-moving equipment?
They said, oh, this is a jobs program. So Friedman says, why don't you give them spoons instead of shovels? I think we understand, now, the sterility of government trying to create jobs.
holding up a watch, waving it back and forth, saying: "you love bush, you love bush....." ad nauseum.
Some stuff you can't make up!
Lightly regulated led to wall street going:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q43RlVWUNw
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Will makes a good point. It's ridiculous to think that an entity not created for the purpose of creating jobs would ever be expected to create jobs. I refer, of course, to the corporation.
Considering the modern corporation is designed to produce profit, not jobs, it seems rather naive (or dishonest) for Will to ... well, to say what hypercapitalists have been saying for decades, which is that, even though corporations don't HAVE to produce jobs, and are never held to any REQUIREMENTS to produce jobs, we can nevertheless always rely upon corporations to produce jobs in the nebulous future, after we've given them tax breaks, deregulation and oodles of cushy government welfare.
But that's the elitist/corporate mindset. It's like we're constantly lending money to someone who insists that, thanks to his planned gambling returns, he will pay us back with interest, then comes back a month later and says "I don't have to pay you back. I never signed a contract; besides, I only won enough to pay for my hotel room", then asks for more.
try this one,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/bg2001...
which tilted to the very weathy...the rich...
The Heritage Foundation? I can find many other places on Bush's tax cuts. Heritage Foundation is evil.
I’ve never heard the Friedman’s spoon project story, but I am curious. Whatever happened to that project? Did the canal get built – even without bulldozers? Did the canal benefit anybody? Did payment for using those shovels help those who were digging – and their families?
And would that canal ever have been built if the diggers were to use spoons?
In the USA, the majority of heavy-equipment projects are government subsidized. Highways, bridges, port and harbor work, river dredging, most sanitation projects ... almost everything involving 'dozers and cranes ... all carry federal wage mandates, and are, in the long run, "jobs projects."
In this country, "jobs projects" are all very capital-intensive. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with using pick, shovel, and wheelbarrow to accomplish the same results. We did it that way for centuries. That's how our original canals and railroads were built.
Milton's "let them use spoons" comment is the same sort of petty vein as "let them eat cake." George Will has the poor sense to repeat it as some sort of wisdom. Why this jackass gets so much air time is beyond me.
Does ANYONE know of a country where Friedman's policies have worked? I know a half-dozen where they've been tried. Failure. Every time.
"Let them eat cake" - seems about right.
I don't think there is any cake left. Let them eat something else. Any ideas?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
The Yes Men, Andy and Matt, put on standard WTO business suits, while Mike wears a McDonald’s uniform. They go to speak as WTO representatives about problems of world hunger.
They buy 100 hamburges and pass them out to the students at the beginning of the lecture. Andy introduces the talk by asking that important basic question: “Why is starvation a problem?” Matt’s illustration of “poverty guy” stands shrugging on the PowerPoint slide. Andy explains with candor how WTO agribusiness policies (like the policies of the British during the Irish Potato famine) are causing widespread starvation in the Third World today. He suggests a solution that—unlike protectionism and so on—remains within the logic of the free market.
The solution, as elegant as it is simple, is to provide Third Worlders with filters that allow them to recycle their food—extending the lifespan of a typical hamburger up to ten times.
Full story and other Yes Men pranks go here:
http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/plattsburgh
You can listen to the lecture clicking on the Reburger mp3
http://stephen.musgrave.org/singles/the_yes_m...
Will is just another in a long line of overpaid people that will do or say anything for the money!
They don't care what happens to you or your family.
The only objective is to take care of himself. It is the republican way.
Because they are willing to lie, to say what they are told without question is one of the key reasons that everyone can see that republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness that is killing America and other places it comes into contact with!
and they do exactly as they're intended to do.
They increase corporatism, plutocracy, aristocracy, fascism, poverty, and cause the largest disparity between the incomes of the wealthy and the middle and lower classes.
The sad thing is so many people who are harmed by these economic policies actually vote for politicians who believe in them.
It really is not much different than a doctor telling someone the best way to remove a wart is by removing the whole arm.
shovel Will has ever used is the one he uses to fling the repugnacant manure masquerading as policy and the fertilizer about his hero, Ronnie Raygun.
Does Will think he's from the house of lords? Why is this chump on our TVs once a week? Is ABC harboring Republicans?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
You have to ask?
"...I think the American people understand that the greatest job creation machine in the history of the world is a reasonably lightly taxed and lightly regulated economy." How's that working out for the "American people?" Other than those like you, George?
Talking heads like will usually say things like "The average American believes...........BS, BS," like they actually know and relate to the average citizen. The truth is pompous jerks like will have no connection to the average American and never has, just like bush as _holes like will were born with a silver spoon up their ass.
The love you take is equal to the love you make. John Lennon Paul Mc Cartney
emperical evidence says otherwise. The top tax rate in the US has varied from 38% to 95% and there was no positive correlation between low tax rate and high economical growth. In fact a large decrease in the top rate is usually followed by a severe depression or recession within five years due to rampant speculation caused by excess capital. Worldwide the countries with the highest tax rates have the best economy and the countries with the lowest tax rates have the worst economy. What sounds right and what is right are usually two different thing expecially when it comes to the economic because of the complex connection between the different parts.
If someone would fire Will that in itself would create one new job.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Bush numbers:
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Then: 4.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001)
Now: 6.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)
JOB CREATION (average per year)
Clinton - 1.76 million (Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2001
Bush - 369,000 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008)
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME
Declined $1100 under Bush administration while wealthiest Americans incomes have gone through the roof!
REAL GDP GROWTH AVG Per YEAR
Clinton administration - 4.09% over 8 years in office
Bush administration - 2.6% over his 8 years
DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE
Then: 10,587 (close of Friday, Jan. 19, 2001)
Now: 9,015 (close of Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009)
BUSH FAVORABILITY RATING
Then: 50% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 31% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)
CHENEY FAVORABILITY RATING
Then: 49% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 21% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)
CONGRESS APPROVAL RATING
Then: 48% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 21% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)
SATISFIED WITH THE NATION'S DIRECTION
Then: 45% (1/01 NBC/WSJ poll)
Now: 26% (12/08 NBC/WSJ poll)
CONSUMER CONFIDENCE (1985=100)
Then: 115.7 (Conference Board, January 2001)
Now: 38.0, which is an all-time low (Conference Board, December 2008)
FAMILIES LIVING IN POVERTY
Then: 6.4 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 7.6 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent numbers available)
AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE
Then: 39.8 million (Census numbers for 2000)
Now: 45.7 million (Census numbers for 2007 -- most recent available)
Average yearly premiums for family health insurance
In 2001 - $6,230
In 2007 - $12,106 (that's approx. $1,000 a month)
U.S. BUDGET
Then: +236.2 billion (2000, Congressional Budget Office)
Now: -$1.2 trillion (projected figure for 2009, Congressional Budget Office)
Bush sure left one hell of a legacy with a bow on top! /snark off
Every Republican Administration since the New Deal has created a stagnate slow growth economy that benefits the top half of the country and the top half alone! Free Market Captialism is disastatrous to our economy.
...is I'd rather put up with the shit stream coming out of his mouth than the diarrhea dribbling out of the corners of William the Bloody Kristol's maniacal grin.
you hear the story about the Rabbi, the Priest and the full of shit opiner best known for his bow ties and anecdotal bloviating???
If there were one walking , talking billboard for the decline of american journalism it is George Will. Why does any one pay any attention to him? Yet there he is week after week. These people have become almost like a clergy.
Ronald Reagan, the men are dead--too bad the trickle down economic myth won't die.
Actually that was the Chicago School of Economics
Be prepared to hear more from them in the future.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Ah, George Fartknocker Will (My son decided years ago that is what the F. stands for.) The peasants are revolting.
George: "They certainly are!"
Chile is the only country Friedman had a direct influence over the economic policies of that either did not have an economic collapse and/or severe human rights issues related to said policies (i.e. Chinese slave labor). And the only reason Chile managed is that they left the copper industry nationalised during that period. Only morons repeat the same action multiple times and expect a different outcome.
No human rights issues under Pinochet? Excuse me, are we both on the same planet?
http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/13329.html
Economic collapse too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history...
Where there's a will
There's a shirt penis.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Under George Bush (who George Will apparently thinks was a great president) not only did the economy go over a cliff but the nation's infrastructure was left to decompose. Bridges were literally falling down. Highways were disintegrating. What the hell is wrong with fixing these things and as an extra added bonus it puts people to work. Go to hell George Will.
George Bush was the best president in history, at least to his base. His base, the super elites make billions and billions of dollars.
See, here's the thing - objectively, in a perfect world where everyone was looking out for the common good, where one's actions would lead to the greatest benefit for society as a whole, for ALL citizens, and for one's own good, Friedman's policy makes sense. It would work in a world where corporations were looking out not just for their end-of-the-quarter statements, but for the benefit of everyone, for the long term. If corporations looked out for the good of all, from the janitor at the corporate headquarters, to the the CEO, then a "lightly taxed, lightly regulated" system would work. There would be no need to tax or regulate them heavily, since everyone would be taken care of. The janitor would be paid a decent, liveable wage, able to pay his taxes, put a roof over his head, send his kids to decent schools, buy plenty of products in a capitalistic system, thereby fueling the economy as a whole and benefitting others, and contribute to charities as he ses fit. The CEO also would be able to do these things, obviously at a much greater rate. In a perfect world, this system would work well. (As would any number of economic systems, including communism.) The problem is, we don't live in that world. We live in the real world - a world where corporations only look at the short term profit they can make on a certain deal, workers and society be damned. They don't look to work within a regulated system, they look for ways to work outside or at least around that system. Greed is the problem. Personal greed on the part of the top officers in a given corporation. If I can make a few per cent more on a deal, then to hell with how many workers I have to fire, or to hell with what my decision will do to a certain community. As long as I get mine. That's why Friedman's theory will never work. It doesn't take greed into the equation.
George Will prefaced his position on jobs creation by asserting for the umpteenth time, as though it were a "given", that FDR's New Deal failed to lower the unemployment rate.
Here is a link to a chart for the U.S. Unemployment rate 1890-2008:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemploy...
uh...see that dramatic INCREASE in the unemployement rate starting in late 1929? Yeah, that would be PRE-New Deal.
uh...see that dramatic DECREASE in the unemployment rate just less than a year after FDR took office in 1933? Yeah, that would be POST-New Deal.
uh...see that re-spiking INCREASE of the unemployment rate right around the 1937/1938 timeframe? Yeah, that would be when FDR's famously conservative Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, finally convinced FDR to put the brakes on the New Deal for a while in order to follow the kind of deficit reduction efforts George Will would have loved.
uh...see that RETURN to a dramatic DECLINE in the unemployment rate from late 1938 through the rest of our pre-War years and beyond? Yeah, that would be when FDR returned to the New Deal policies that had been working so well to REDUCE the unemployment rate before Henry Morgenthau's harping finally won him over for a couple of disastrous years of doing it George Will's way.
uh...see that big liar on the This Week show's discussion panel every week? Yeah, that would be George Will.
I love it when Krugman gets on with this pompous Buckley wanna be , he embarrasses Will every time continually having to correct Will on the facts and on history . In regards to jobs I think he's right though , this government realistically cannot create lasting decent jobs out of the blue , some temporary highway projects don't cut it , maybe a new war ? The government can create demand by bailing out the lower and middle class for an F'n change , put money in the people's hands and they will spend it right now creating demand right now , demand brings back the jobs that were lost creating even more demand and gets the economy moving , the money flows on up ... but gawwwwwwd forbid ! Ohhhhhhhh Lordy , curse the very notion ! Better to hand the wealthy , their masters and co-conspirators , a trillion dollars of our money no strings attached and reimburse the crooks and gamblers for the money they lost at the casino . The solution is simple really but they do not give one damn about the people or jobs , trickle down is just code for piss on em and free market is code for free to rape , pillage and steal .
for using it to justify Bush's failed economics. Naomi Klein? Please she misquotes and misconstrues Friedman’s teachings worse than anyone out there! If Friedman were alive he would mop her up in a debate, and he would school George Will for defending deficit spending Bush. Friedman would be on board with people like Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, and Marc Faber.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
There is no base so base as the base of Bush and Will. The Friedmaniacs believe that free markets do it all. Where is human decency or morality? It has no role in the free market. Will once again tries to diminish FDR. No one will shed a tear when Will dies. The nation mourned FDR because he tried to improve the lives of Americans! When did greed trump everything?
I doubt it, if you did you would very afraid of anything it does.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
Of course George Will wants to continue Bush's economic policies. Because while people like George Will were cheerleading Bush's ruining the economy and his bogus war in Iraq people like George Will were recieving enormous tax cuts and he never wants them to stop.
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