[I]f people do not understand a true political economy, they will make a false one of their own.
W. Stanley Jevons, Political Economy (1880).
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W. S. Jevons
After establishing, during the big Super Bowl day interview, that President Donald Trump respects Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Bill O’Reilly asked why.
After all, the Fox News star challenged, “Putin’s a killer.”*
“We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”
This disturbed just about everyone. On the left, it was more evidence of Russian influence. The right recoiled at Trump doing the leftist thing, equating our moral failings with the much worse failings of others.
“I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves,” insisted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), “and the way the United States does.”
But is that really what Trump said? He merely pooh-poohed America’s innocence.**
And not without cause. His predecessor, after all, holds the world record (not Nobel-worthy) in drone-striking the innocent as well as the guilty in seven countries . . . none of which the U.S. has declared war upon.
But wait: if “we’ve got killers” is the new acceptable-in-public truth, then why not “we’ve got currency manipulators”?
Yes, I’m shifting focus from east of Eastern Europe onto the Far East. According to a different Fox report, “Trump accused China and Japan of currency manipulation, saying they play ‘the devaluation market and we sit there like a bunch of dummies.’”
Despite incoherent objections from Japan***, let’s not forget the obvious: the U.S. manipulates currency, too. What do you think the Federal Reserve is for?
I mention this not to rub Trump’s nose in hypocrisy. It’s to establish an estoppel principle here.
How may we object when others do that which we do ourselves?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The Russian State is asking for an apology from O’Reilly. Not for a retraction on the grounds of truth, mind you, but an apology. O’Reilly wryly balks.
** Which certainly doesn’t absolve Vladimir Putin of guilt.
*** Yoshihide Suga, a spokesperson for the Japanese Government, insists that “the aim of monetary policies that have pulled the yen lower is to spur inflation, not devalue the currency.” Nice distinction. Thanks.
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Delaware and Slavery
On February 8, 1865, Delaware voters rejected the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, voting to continue the practice of slavery. Delaware belatedly and symbolically ratified the amendment on February 12, 1901.
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Arthur Twining Hadley
The advantages of intervention on the part of a government are visible and tangible facts: The evil that results from such intervention is much more indirect and can only be appreciated after close and intensive study.
Arthur Twining Hadley, Economics: An Account of the Relations Between Private Property and Public Welfare (1896)
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom,” wrote H. L. Mencken, “is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels.”
Henry Louis Mencken (1880 – 1956), master prose stylist and social critic, knew whereof he wrote. But he also penned things to which few would give their hearty assent.
Today, we find several controversialists who, like Mencken, side with individualism against collectivism. They are raising a ruckus.
But are they “scoundrels”?
Does it matter?
The big news, last week, was the anti-Milo Yiannopoulis riot in Berkeley. But also last week, Robby Soave explains, “Black bloc ‘anti-fascists’ attacked right-wing media figure Gavin McInnes outside a New York University building,” where things got so crazy that one protester, a professor, screamed at the police for protecting Mr. McInnes when they “should” have — get this — been beating him up!
She called McInnes a Nazi. And insinuated he was a rape threat, etc.
So what did Reason writer Soave do? “McInnes,” he noted, “routinely says obnoxious things that deserve criticism. He’s something of a Diet Milo.”
What Soave did not do was ever address the Nazi charge, the rape charge, or any of the calumnies hurled at McInnes. Were Mencken the one being attacked, would he have written that the Sage of Baltimore “routinely writes obnoxious things that deserve criticism”?
Sure, true. But is that the stance you want to take?
Soave finds Milo and Gavin icky.
I feel his pain. But . . . when “Nazi” is the charge, calling the accused “obnoxious” and “deserv[ing] criticism”?
Gavin McInnes isn’t a Nazi. Or a rapist. And he retains free speech rights, regardless of what one thinks about his anti-feminism, or other controversial opinions.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Soviets Give Up
On February 7, 1990, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party agreed to give up its monopoly on power, thus ushering the way for the dissolution of the putatively communist empire.
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Ben Shapiro
I am not a big fan of politicians becoming celebrities, because it seems to me that our politicians are there to do a job. . . . I think that politicians should be treated basically like DMV workers except with more scorn.
Ben Shapiro, The Ben Shapiro Show, February 6, 2017.
“Paul,” an old boss of mine used to say, “there are no set prices.”
He meant that when a vendor said it would cost x, my choice wasn’t just yes or no. Negotiate. I could say, “Boy, I’d sure like that, but golly, I can’t afford to pay x. Any chance you’d consider 4/5ths of x?”
It was amazing how often I bought what was priced at x for less than x.*
Consider government waste — from the Pentagon’s $400 hammers to millions in cost overruns for weapons systems. Politicians pay lip service to getting waste under control, but actually do something about it?
Yeah, right.
That’s why I took notice last December when then President-Elect Trump tweeted “Cancel order!” in response to the high price of a future Air Force One from Boeing. Then, Trump sent Lockheed stock down 3 percent with another tweet:
Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
“Mr. Trump . . . would like to squeeze Lockheed for a better deal . . .” the New York Times explained, adding that Trump had “sent shock waves through the military industry.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut, where the F-35’s engines are manufactured, responded, “The suggestion that costs are out of control is just plain wrong.”
Well, last week, CNN reported that, “Defense giant Lockheed Martin has agreed to sell 90 new F-35 fighter jets to the US Defense Department . . . a deal that amounts to more than $700 million in savings over the last batch of aircraft delivered.”
There are no set prices.
This is Common Sense. I’m skinflint Paul Jacob.
* Even when a vendor wouldn’t budge on price, I could always call back a day later and say I’d finagled a way to afford it. Even then, the message that cost mattered likely started any future negotiations from a better position.
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James Fenimore Cooper
The column of society must have its capital as well as its base. It is only perfect while each part is entire, and discharges its proper duty.
James Fenimore Cooper, The Chainbearer; Or, The Littlepage Manuscripts, 1845.
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Aaron Burr and Ronald Reagan
On February 6, 1778, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed by the United States and France, signaling official recognition of the new republic. Exactly a decade later, the State of Massachusetts became the sixth in the union to ratify the new United States Constitution.
February 6 marks the birthdays of Aaron Burr (1756 – 1836), third Vice President of the United States and infamous Weehauken duelist, and Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004) 40th President of the United States.