Why This Election Is Awesome -- Making It Easier NOT to Give Power to these Losers
The other day at dinner, I told a group of folks with more, uh, conventional political views than my own that this election was great. When pressed on my seeming madness, I said that I was tired of people fetishizing politicians, starting with the cult of the Presidency. History is written as if these losers drove most of history, when in fact the vast vast majority of our wealth and well-being today results from the actions of private individuals, private individuals who typically had to fight politicians to make our lives better. Anything we can do to cause people to think twice about giving more power to these knuckleheads, the better. And thus, this election is great -- like Dorothy stumbling on the wizard behind the curtain, perhaps going forward people will be a little less willing to blindly accept politicians as their betters.
J_W_W:
Case in point. For nearly 40 years the government and politicians talked about energy independence for the US. Not ONE of them delivered. But fracking did.....
October 17, 2016, 7:36 amsteamboatlion:
Unfortunately a big proportion of the country think one of these two candidates actually has the answers. Trump supporters (assuming Hillary wins) are going to say "told you so", not "maybe we should stop glorifying politicians" and vice versa if Trump wins. Those of us who get it are already planning to vote for Gary Johnson...
October 17, 2016, 7:53 amIllini Marine:
I fear I am not as optimistic as you.
The Cult of Hillary is well entrenched in most of her followers, perhaps even more than the Cult of Obama.
And I am confident Gary Johnson, were he to win, would soon develop his own cult following.
October 17, 2016, 8:47 ammarque2:
You can't dismiss the ability of a candidate so easily. One of the above candidates, not Gary, has disavowed the wall street elite, upset silicon valley by saying they shouldn't abuse immigration programs, and upset both the GOP and Democrat establishment/elites, while having the whole of the media against him. Seems to me that candidate is the one who is most likely to make changes, which is why the "status quo" is so against him. Gary, is a pot smoking goof. I have seen some of his interviews, not much substance at all. Doesn't even seem to quite know what libertarianism is. Ron Paul he is not.
October 17, 2016, 9:49 amRewired actuary:
Seems like Gary Johnson is the vanity candidate.
October 17, 2016, 11:19 amSTW:
I'm not willing to accept most of them as my equal.
October 17, 2016, 2:03 pmGoneWithTheWind:
Imagine $20 trillion in some kind of huge pile. It is a lot of money; a lot of debt. We cannot pay it back and make no mistake no one intends to try to pay it off or believes it would be possible. Imagine the payment on $20 trillion when the interest rates return to normal. Perhaps between $1 -$2 trillion a year. We cannot pay that. When interest rates rise again we will not be able to service the debt. It is simply too much money. We have been borrowing about $1.2 trillion a year for the last 8 years. Even with all that money in addition to the federal income taxes and other revenues our federal budget is increasingly tough to meet. That means we cannot wean ourselves from borrowing a trillion more or less every year. These three irrefutable facts are going to destroy us. We could fix this... But we won't. But if we don't the inevitable economic collapse will make us long for the crash of 1929 and the 12 years of the great depression. This will happen, it is inevitable for 20 trillion reasons.
October 17, 2016, 2:14 pmjohnmoore:
Sadly, I don't think enough people feel that way about Hilary, and the reason they have the opinion of Trump is mostly because of his vulgarity (read: talks like the common man) and not his incompetence.
And, of course, the media will continue to sanctify Hillary.
So no, the lesson will not be learned.
October 17, 2016, 8:00 pmTruthisaPeskyThing:
Coyote, I am deeply concerned about your thought process here. Yes, I agree with you on "Anything we can do to cause people to think twice about giving more power to these knuckleheads, the better." However, that will be the exact opposite of the results of this election. While I do recognize that Trump often seems to miss the idea of limited government, I am confident that enough Republicans would join Democrats, aided by the media, to keep him in check. However, that is not the likely outcome. More likely, Hillary will win, and such election would give more power to the knuckleheads. Her election would be a mandate for more government power. Some people like you might bemoan the government power grab, but there is not a path to stop the power grab if Hillary wins.
October 18, 2016, 9:27 amTruthisaPeskyThing:
You do bring up a point. Even though interest is a significant portion of the federal budget, its impact has been muted for several years because of abnormally low interest rates. People may forget that 5% used to be the "usual" rate for 10 year Treasury bonds -- now they are about 1.7%. Using Math which escapes most politicians: 5% on a 20 Trillion debt is $1 Trillion. That $1 Trillion would be a huge portion of a 3.7 Trillion Budget.
October 18, 2016, 9:38 amBy the way, most people miss the true impact on interest costs with the way that the government reports them. The Government reports net interests which reduces the interest paid on government bonds by the interest paid to the Social Security Trust Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank. However, "we" are counting on the interest paid to the Social Security Trust Fund to be available to the Social Security beneficiaries!
Mercury:
I'm waiting for "Obama" to become synonymous with the office of the chief executive and seat of supreme power itself as was the case with Caesar and Augustus. As in: "After a brief term in the Senate he would become Obama in 2024."
"Obama" does have a nice, imperial ring to it, like a mixture of "sultan" "pharaoh" and "grand-pooh-pa".
We might as well make the chief minister of culture the "Grand Kardashian" while we're at it...
October 18, 2016, 1:14 pmCarl S:
You are kidding yourself if you think that a Clinton victory will result in anything less than "more power to these knuckleheads." Once she installs a few more leftists onto the Supreme Court, dedicated to legislating from the bench, all hope will be lost for ever curtailing the size and reach of government.
October 19, 2016, 9:42 amDaveK:
Agreed... I'd rather have a disfunctional and "log-jammed" government than one free to impose their whims upon us.
October 19, 2016, 11:44 amDaveK:
As long as the government keeps increasing the "freebie" handouts, they will continue to be elected. It's just that it will be really ugly when the money runs out.
October 19, 2016, 11:44 amDaveK:
Not lost forever, but likely for our lifetimes. But we're likely to see it all fall apart before we shed this mortal coil.
October 19, 2016, 11:46 am