Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week January 29, 2012
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.trackback
Only one contestant this week
Much though I hate to disagree with our esteemed President, on Hayek, I have to. Far from being discredited, Hayek is our inspiration now. It was he who showed how state intervention — the US Fed and Bank of England setting ultra-low interest rates in the Twenties — contributed to the Great Depression, and how, far from causing recovery, Keynesian economics resulted in the US economy sliding back into recession in the late Thirties. Likewise, low interest rates and sub-prime mortgages a decade ago caused this crisis. Last week’s temporary pick-up in US growth is less a sign of recovery and more a sign that quantitative easing has moved from being a needed and justifiable tool to save the US financial system to an unsustainable counter-productive tool for pump-priming US domestic demand.
Hayek shone a beacon against the forces of state tyranny, forces that led ultimately to totalitarianism, evil and war.
Marc Coleman. Just after the bit I’ve quoted, he goes on to complain about the Front National. I’d like to say he’s just ignorant of Hayek and Pinochet, but he probably just doesn’t care.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
The line about Keynesian economics causing a slide back into depression in the late 30s is a cute Republican/US right talking point that completely ignores the policy actions taken by FDR during the Great Depression and in particular the turn away from reflation in the 1935 to 1937 which is arguably the reason for the slip back. But given most of his thoughts are parallel to those talking points why are we surprised?
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The very best part of the cults of Hayek, Mises (and Rand) is how followers will never, ever want to debate you on the details of their assertions. Instead you’re treated to hand-waving like “read Hayek”, followed by insults (if you persist) that you’re clearly a Marxist/statist/whatever.
If they can’t explain a claim clearly and concisely in terms of the real world, then it’s most likely wrong. This is a good guide for dealing with 9/11 theorists, UFOlogists, religious believers etc. all of whom exhibit the same appeals to authority (and aversion to defending their beliefs with reasoned arguement).
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‘Keynesian economics resulted in the US economy sliding back into recession in the late Thirties.’-Coleman. An entirely false statement. Roosevelt, when he ran against Hoover in 1932, was a fiscal conservative and criticized what he saw as Hoover’s excessive government spending. But due to the many pro-employment measures he introduced by 1936 unemployment had been reduced and the economy was growing. Roosevelt then listened to his financial advisers, cut spending and reduced the deficit to 2.5% of GDP in 1937, and almost balanced the budget by 1938 thus reducing aggregate demand. Monetary policy also became restrictive. Because of these anti-Keynesian measures the economy again went into recession, industrial production fell dramatically and unemployment soared. WWii deficits reversed these trends.
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With regard to FDR and the depression, we often forget that at the same time as he was boosting federal spending, states and city governments were cutting back sharply on their spending – something which undercut the demand boosting effects of the New Deal.
As for this tosser: “I hate to disagree with our esteemed President, on Hayek, I have to.” Well I hate to stop reading a piece after just one line, but in this case I have to.
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Does he really hate it, though? I saw him tweet the other day that FG are “centre-left”*, makes you wonder what he thinks President Higgins is.
* this in the context of claiming that the Independent share in the latest poll means that a ‘proper’ right-wing party is being called-out-for by the people of Ireland, seeing as though Marc has now unilaterally re-designated all Irish political parties as left-wing (eye-roll).
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It’s bad enough being ruled by crooks, but to be rule by crooks who are also imbeciles. . .
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“this in the context of claiming that the Independent share in the latest poll means that a ‘proper’ right-wing party is being called-out-for by the people of Ireland, seeing as though Marc has now unilaterally re-designated all Irish political parties as left-wing (eye-roll).”
..
and all independents and others as right wing…
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“MarcPColeman Marc Peter Coleman
21% support of Ind shows huge latent support for a new centre right party (left crowded by Lab, ULA, SF & centre left by FF, FG RedC poll”
https://twitter.com/#!/MarcPColeman/status/163379847035494401
Explained further by:
“MarcPColeman Marc Peter Coleman
@handelaar We have 2 centrist (slightly left) parties already FF,FG. ALL parties are Liberal on social issues. We need something DIFFERENT.”
https://twitter.com/#!/MarcPColeman/status/163705128703102976
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Oh, that’s new, and cool.
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To top it off, Coleman’s argument regarding government regulation is a farrago of lies and half-truths.
Coleman is a bit vague about what Carter did in 1977, but I can guess he is referring to the Community Reinvestment Act. It may be worth pointing out that the Act does not -force- banks to lend to people who could not afford the mortgages; the Act explicitly refers to compliance with the requirements of ‘safe and sound operation’ of the institution. The legislation did introduce encouragement for the extension of loans to minorities but fell far short of ‘forcing’: it does not specify any penalties for non-compliance, save that it be taken into account when a bank seeks to expand via a merger etc.
If pressure came from anywhere, it was from various community groups and on-profits, who would object to delinquent banks from being able to merge or acquire other banks. One might refer to these groups as a ‘market force’ but only if it did not disrupt the paradigm you have of how the world should work.
Equally, many groups on the right were, pre-crash, wondering whether the Act was necessary anymore since banks needed no incentive to lend to profitable ventures. (See here: http://cei.org/cei_files/fm/active/0/Michelle%20Minton%20-%20CRA%20-%20FINAL_WEB.pdf) Of course, post-crash same groups are prepared to peg all the blame on the same act that many were claiming had been rendered obsolete by the market.
Finally, only a fool would state that Hayek would condemned government intervention and then, in the following sentence, condemn politicians for not intervening to ‘rein in…reckless lending’!
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There’s more crap from John Paul McCarthy here:
President Hyde never broke a lance publicly for the many hundreds of his innocent and helpless rural co-religionists who were murdered during 1919-22. President Childers never said a word so far as I am aware about the profoundly sectarian dimension in Bunreacht na h-Eireann’s education clauses.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/john-paul-mccarthy-shatter-spoke-for-irish-protestants-as-well-as-the-jewish-congregation-3002921.html
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“Many hundreds”? Even the much-abused Peter Hart, certainly no cheerleader for the IRA, only put the total for Protestant civilian deaths in the south at 100 in the entire 1919 – 23 period.
There used to be a time when journalists, even when writing about the past rather than current affairs, would try to maintain some modicum of factual accuracy. Oh well…
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WANKER. If you consult the relevant volume of the Oxford History of Ireland (I found mine in the library on Pearse street, the reference section on the upper floor), you’ll see that Hyde did, in fact, speak up for his co-religionists.
The minister of education of the day was perturbed at the fact that wealthy southern protestants were sending their children to school in England to evade the instruction in Irish requirement of the new school system. He attempted to bring in a provision that would have required anyone coming back from Hogwarts or wherever to pass a competency exam in Irish before being readmitted to the state.
Even if you take the charitable interpretation that this eejit wasn’t trying to target the minority, but was motivated by his hardon for the Irish revival of Irish, his proposal would have had the same effect as if he had been deliberately targetting the minority.
So what happened next? Hyde refused to sign this bill into law, and not only that he referred it to the supreme court. Surprise, The Supremes found that the proposed bill was unconstitutional, and threw it out.
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Oops! The WANKER was directed at John Paul McCarthy, not you Dr. N.
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Don’t worry Dr. X, I didn’t think for a minute it was aimed at me
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Oops…after clearing my browser and then posting, I mispelled my
username. 😦
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Where does he get his precise figure of ‘hundreds’?
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From out of his backside, probably.
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Surprise Surprise. JPM contributed material to the
Reform Group’s publication:
“Ireland and the Commonwealth – Towards Membership” :
http://www.reform.org/site/2011/05/16/new-book-ireland-and-the-commonwealth-towards-membership/
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In fairness to him, he has to make a living and when the S/INDO says jump, Marc replies “how high”, sure they both have as much credibility as a bucket of snails
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This idea of West Cork as the killing fields for Irish protestants is often commented upon down here. The fact is that the area probably has the highest Protestant population in the Republic, at the last census Bandon was the second most Protestant town in Ireland, coming behind Greystones would seem to disprove this. It’s also a fact that when Admiral Boyle Somerville was murdered by the IRA in 1936 there was a huge local turnout at his funeral. Though of course this is all rendered somewhat irrelevant by the fact that Shatter wasn’t talking about Protestants at all and it’s quite perverse to imagine that he was.
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[…] got to mention Marc Coleman’s contention [as mentioned here ] that in the Sunday BUsiness Post poll the weekend before last the: 21% support of Ind shows huge […]
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