A tale of two Georges

"I'm not gonna let this economy crater in order to preserve the free market system."

~ George W. Bush, Fox News, interview with Bret Baier

Can't shake that eerie feeling of déjà vu? There's probably a good reason.

In 1927, to help bolster Britain's return to the gold standard, the Federal Reserve decided to encourage gold to flow from the U.S. to England. They did this by cutting the discount rate by ¼ and injecting $200 million into the banking system. The easy-money policy did help western Europe's post-war recovery. But it also fed one helluva a bubble in the stock market.

The following year they decided to get market speculation under control by drastically increasing the discount rate; by August '29 it had been doubled! This triggered a monetary contraction of more than a third through 1933.

As if to add insult to injury, this was followed by an even more activist administration whose "New Deal" actually suppressed a recovery and dealt the country the depression of 1938.

I believe that we'd be better off if Mr. Bush (and his successor) were to heed the words of another George:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

~ George Santayana, Reason in Common Sense

Not a pretty picture

Cartoon by Nate Beeler

Addendum: Ill AG v. Gov.

I thought that the following item from Rasmussen Reports might have some bearing on the soap opera that's developing in Illinois.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has surged to the lead among Democrats on the list of favorites to take Barack Obama’s place in the U.S. Senate at the expense of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., whose image clearly has suffered in the growing Blagojevich scandal.

Thirty-two percent (32%) of Illinois Democrats now say Madigan should be named to the seat vacated by Obama, the state’s junior Democratic senator, according to a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Illinois voters taken Wednesday night.

I don't know if Lisa Madigan aspires to become the junior senator from Illinois. But given the animosity between Blagojevich and the Madigans, it's not very likely that he would appoint her to replace Obama. She would have a much better chance of getting that seat with Lt. Governor Quinn or via a special election.

Connect the dots as you see them.

Sentence first - verdict afterwards.

The Illinois AG, Lisa Madigan, wants to fire her boss. In an unprecedented move she filed a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order against Gov. Blagojevich in the Supreme Court of Illinois. She asserts that the Governor should be effectively removed from office because he was "charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery." In doing this she is attempting to get the court to pass sentence on a man who has not yet been convicted while suborning the executive branch to the judicial!

I have to wonder how much of this Red Queen style display of juris-hubris is influenced by the on-going feud between her father and Blagojevich.

Blago may be a total sleaze-bag who should be removed from office, but the court is not the appropriate venue for remedy! Only the people (via recall) or their elected representatives (via impeachment) have that authority in a democratic republic. To have those in elective office serve at the pleasure of the unelected would set an horrific precedent likely to be the death knell for democracy.

Barak Schultz?

I don't believe that Obama expressly condoned Gov. Blagojevich (D - IL) trying to sell his Senate seat. At the end of ¶104 FBI Agent Daniel Cain's affidavit states: "ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 [Valerie Jarrett] for the Senate seat 'but they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation...'".

However, I am bothered by Obama's claim that he "had no contact with the governor" and "was not aware of what was happening".

This is not the first time that he's adopted a Sergeant Schultz-like posture regarding his associates. For instance, he claimed not to know about his aunt's immigration status, Bill Ayers' history, Reverend Wright's sermons, or even that "Tony" Rezko was a slumlord.

Is this what we're getting in the oval office — a man whose instincts have him turn a blind eye to things he didn't want seen?

Did you notice anyone missing?

There are some who believe that throwing a national hissy-fit about California's proposition 8 is a good idea. They seem to believe that if there's a "Day Without a Gay" that commerce will be so hindered that America will be coerced into accepting same-sex marriage.

It wasn't a very impressive protest when it was tried on behalf of illegal aliens. As I recall, that protest actually reduced their influence by demonstrating that the ones who stayed home were really not needed!

If tomorrow's protest has any effect, it's not likely to be the one that its organizers intend.