Whole Cloth

Following up on a post regarding the canard that deregulation is what we need around here to get businesses on their feet, here's a piece by the newly-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Economic Policy:

In the September survey of small business owners by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, more than twice as many respondents cited poor sales (29.6 percent) as their largest problem than cite regulation (13.9 percent).

In an August survey of economists by the National Association for Business Economics, 80 percent of respondents described the current regulatory environment as “good” for American businesses and the overall economy.

As noted above, in a recent Wall Street Journal survey of economists, 65 percent of respondents concluded that a lack demand, not government policy, was the main impediment to increased hiring.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than three-tenths of 1 percent of mass lay-offs in the second quarter of this year were due to government regulations or intervention. [2]

The article also includes a graph which demonstrates the identical ups and downs of markets in the US and Germany, which would suggest (I'll take her word for it) that it's not about imposition of particular regulations, but about universal market forces:

Okay, I'll admit I can't bring much knowledge to bear on that graph; but it doesn't seem too challenging: another central economic argument of teabaggRs is, like the rest of their claims, simply made up out of whole cloth. (I've always wondered from where that expression came.)

If it's hard to understand graphs, there's always reality (as if teabaggRs care about such things):

Obama’s White House has approved fewer regulations than his predecessor George W. Bush at this same point in their tenures, and the estimated costs of those rules haven’t reached the annual peak set in fiscal 1992 under Bush’s father, according to government data reviewed by Bloomberg News. […]

Obama’s White House approved 613 federal rules during the first 33 months of his term, 4.7 percent fewer than the 643 cleared by President George W. Bush’s administration in the same time frame, according to an Office of Management and Budget statistical database reviewed by Bloomberg.

Has there ever been a campaign season like this one -- a political party, for that matter -- where literally all of the central tenets and claims are demonstrably false? And where those falsehoods seem to matter so little to the faithful?

File Under No Kidding

Gee. A central theme of Republican economics is bogus? Whodda thunk?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Want to help the economy and create jobs? Well, roll back those government regulations! It's a talking point trumpeted by nearly every Republican politician. But would less regulation really spur hiring?

The story goes like this: Thanks to the Obama administration, a wave of new government regulations are strangling business to the detriment of hiring and economic growth.

But in an economy with serious structural problems, a crippled housing marketand slack demand, is government regulation really holding back the labor market?

Not so much, according to government data and surveys of business owners and economists.

Only a small percentage of employers report regulation as a reason for laying off workers.

Not that this is earthshakingly new: businesses have been saying it for a while now. To be sure, not all of them. But it's sort of self-evident that ground rules provide stability. For example, knowing your food, your consumer products, are likely to be safe means people buy without fear. That's good for business. Same with not being, oh, dead, from, oh, arsenic.

Having worked as a health-care "provider" (love that term) I can say without doubt that there are rules that are non-productive; and presidents in modern times have all attempted to weed them out. Not entirely successfully.

But teabaggRs, as usual, have simple answers for complex problems: eliminate all rules; especially those created in the Obama administration. Get rid of the EPA, the consumer protection agencies. Why? Surely not because it's good for actual people. Who then, one asks.

Bailout

One of the few times I cried with my wife (except at some movies, of course: I'm a sensitive guy) was the day I flew off to Vietnam. It was the helplessness of being made to do something really huge, really unwanted, potentially fatal to me, or our marriage, or my career. That's what it was. The helplessness. (In the end, ironically, I was glad I went.)

I haven't shed tears (yet) but this bailout thing feels a little bit the same. Despite being pretty conservative (financially) I've lost a significant amount of my savings, on which I'm now entirely dependent. The cost of the bailout (or of a non-bailout) is not yet measurable, but it seems certain that it'll impact us all, in very bad ways. I don't much doubt it'd be worse if nothing were done. Still: this is all a result of failings and screwups and politics and ideas, philosophies and greed, of which I was not a part. Other people have done this to me, and to all of us. And what's really galling is that it's the very people whose corruption and stupidity got us to this point, who are the recipients of our largess. They screwed up; they're getting bailed out; it's screwing us all; yet there may be no choice but to do it. That's helplessness, and way beyond frustration. (And just to show I'm more open-minded than some might think, I just about choked when I heard Nancy Pelosi say "We sent a message to Wall Street - the party is over.") (Scene in my head: Parents come home early, find their kids and about fifty others partying, drinking, shooting up, screwing on the couches. "Okay kids, party's over," they say, handing out booze, money, drugs, and condoms. For sure, condoms...)

I saw Joe Stiglitz (I knew him a little in college, where we were together) on TV Sunday, saying the only place champagne corks were popping over this thing was on Wall Street. A sucker was found, willing to buy up all their "toxic" debt. The sucker, he said, is us. No bubbly here. But there, there is. (Joe also said action was necessary.)

When John McCain "suspended" his campaign, he first met with Congressional Republicans who were balking. Unable to admit their complicity in the very philosophy that led to the mess, they couldn't accept the deal. To do so would be actually to accept responsibility. Reports suggest McCain, who had no proposal of his own, only served to stir it up further. It's clear he didn't solve anything because, well, it didn't happen.

For his entire career, John McCain has been a self-described deregulator. Proud of it. Mentioning it whenever he could (whenever he wasn't mentioning, y'know, the thing he doesn't like to mention). His advisers are entirely of that cloth, writers of the un-rules in fact. How can people accept him as a possible savior of the situation with this record? Only days earlier, he'd said "the fundamentals of the economy are strong." (And then, straight-talker that he is, he claimed he'd meant the workers of this country are strong. Gimme a friggin' break! If that's what he meant, why didn't he say it? Especially when he'd, Nero-like, phiddled the phrase umpteen times before. Even George Bush hadn't said it THAT recently. Straight talkin' country-firster, indeed.)

The whole thing sucks. I admire those on both sides who voted for the bill, because it's clear the vast majority of the electorate is against it. I don't know who's right. But I know that taking such a vote can only be based on the conclusion that the result of inaction is worse; and a willingness to lay their careers on the line. And THAT, my friends, is country first.

So here we are, where we are. I'm mostly convinced the bailout is necessary (it'd be easier if the people who testify to the direness weren't the same ones lying about how everything was fine a few months ago, and if it weren't so reminiscent.) But what's curiously missing -- and it's nearly as frustrating as the plan itself -- is the slightest admission on the part of the conservatives who led the fight against regulations that they have anything for which to apologize, that the philosophy they've been touting all these years has come a cropper.

No tears.

Makes me want to scream.

[Addendum: here's a link to the complete text of an Obama speech this morning. As we've come to expect, it's thoughtful, comprehensive, and clear. I'd call it "presidential." The contrast is stark.]