Friday, August 10, 2012

Mark Thoma — Outsourcing Government: What Is Mitt Romney Talking About?


Romney's position all ideology, no substance?

Read it at Economist's View
Outsourcing Government: What Is Mitt Romney Talking About?
Mark Thoma | Professor of Economics, University of Oregon

9 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"At the same time, government is the least productive—the federal government is the least productive of our economic sectors. "

How is he measuring "productivity"?

This is like: "Germany is more productive than Greece"...

They are ALL morons.

rsp,

Leverage said...

Matt, the biggest question for these dumb guys is: of what use is productivity?


Is not like the population is more happy with marginal gains of productivity. Also, of what use is productivity if we are not more efficient in the use of real resources? Destroying the environment to produce more is better?


Mad world.

Tom Hickey said...

Lev, "productivity" is a political buzz word in the US. No one understands, as Romney clears does not, or if ye does, he is consciously deploying it as a buzz word. The buzz word means some like "making money from hard work." The idea is that govt employees don't work as hard as workers do in the private sector, so they are less productive. It's part of the ongoing argument on the right to shrink govt so "the people" will have more. Totally disingenuous, and made up self-serving BS to fool the rubes.

Matt Franko said...

"made up self-serving BS to fool the rubes"

I dont think they are that smart Tom, you give them too much credit here.... they really believe this stuff imo...

they are out of their minds stupid, this needs to be exposed imo, ie how stupid they all are, sorry for them, but this must be exposed imo.

rsp,

paul meli said...

"Do you not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?" (in a letter to his son Johan written in 1648.

Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna af Södermöre (Swedish: [ˈʊksɛnˌɧæːrna] ( listen); 1583 – 1654), Count of Södermöre, was a Swedish statesman.[1] He became a member of the Swedish Privy Council in 1609 and served as Lord High Chancellor of Sweden from 1612 until his death. He was a confidant of first Gustavus Adolphus and then Queen Christina.[2]
Oxenstierna is widely considered one of the most influential people in Swedish history. He played an important role during the Thirty Years' War and was appointed Governor-General of occupied Prussia; he also laid the foundations of Swedish central government administration.

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, the way I see it there the true believers in the GOP and then there is the power money, which is self-interested and pragmatic. The latter use the true believers, who they consider the rubes. They know they can dupe the rubes by playing on their beliefs.

The power money is divided into those that Karl Rove represents, i.e., the GOP Establishment (like the Chamber of Commerce) that has controlled the party for a long time, certainly since the Nixon Era, and those the Dick Armey represents through the Tea Party and allied conservatives, notably the Koch Bros. The Koch goes back long time, too, to the Goldwater Era and theJohn Birch Society, which was co-founded by Robert Welch and the Koch Bros' father, Fred Chase Koch. The Birchers were to the right of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Welch wrote in a widely circulated statement, The Politician, "Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes." He went on. "With regard to ... Eisenhower, it is difficult to avoid raising the question of deliberate treason."

Sound familiar? It's not just because this president is non-white that this faction hates him. They really do see socialism anywhere that is not laissez-faire capitalism.

Romney is the GOP Establishment figure advanced by Rove & Co, and Ryan represents the conservative and Libertarian wing of the base, but like Sarah Palin wrt John McCain. Same playbook.

JK said...

Tom,

Do you mind if I ask…

Have you written a book?

Or, have you written essays? or papers?

You've got a breadth of knowledge. While I absolutely appreciate it here at MNE, I wonder if you have, and if not, if you'd consider… writing with more length… ?

Matt Franko said...

Tom,

This may be at core, a view by these morons that it is "socialism" if a nation were to implement a system of state currency like the ancient Greeks did with their nomisma.

And I agree with you that Ryan represents that anarcho-libertarian wing very well (HUGE amounts of Ayn Rand love from Ryan).

It is an outrage that Welch guy would go so far as to accuse Ike of being a "socialist", and "treasonous" after what Ike gave of himself for this nation.

And "treasonous"? Treasonous to what? Certainly not this nation. That is absurd.... but this statement is REVEALING: Ike's actions perhaps were "treasonous" to the thing that these morons hold their true allegiance to: exogenous metallic "money".

THEY are treasonous imo.

This is a very DEEEEEP psychosis that we are observing with these people... they are literally "out of their minds"...

rsp,

Tom Hickey said...

JK: Have you written a book? Or, have you written essays? or papers?

Only in my field. I did the content for this site, which is about my specialization in comparative spiritual from the POV of perennial wisdom. There are links to other things I've written about this under Journal.

I did do an MA thesis on social and political philosophy (1972), entitled, Revolution or Evolution: Toward a Theory of Social Change, but that is the only thing I've done on this other an MFA thesis (1963) in cinema on social criticism in the comedy of René Clair and Charles Chaplin. My disseration (1974) was on the language of justification in ordinary language from a Wittgensteinian POV. In interim between the MFA and grad study in philosophy, I completed my service obligation as a naval officer.