or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
•
"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 12, 2008
Heh. Indeed.
With the Bush administration's Treasury Department resorting to government bailout after government bailout to keep the U.S. economy afloat, leftist governments and their political allies in Latin America are having a field day, gloating one day and taunting Bush the next for adopting the types of interventionist government policies that he's long condemned."We were just talking about that this morning on the floor," said Congressman Edwin Castro, who heads the leftist Sandinista congressional bloc in Nicaragua. "We think the Bush administration should follow the same policies that they and the International Monetary Fund have always told us to follow when we have economic problems — a structural adjustment that requires cutting government spending and reducing the role of government."
If the U.S. weren't a powerful country, and had to do what we've made other countries do (via the I.M.F.) when they were in similar situations, we would right now be jacking up interest rates, slashing government spending and allowing the entire banking system to fail—which would guarantee a genuine, deep depression. It was these hideously cruel policies which in part led to the giant demonstrations against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999.
Of course, we are a powerful country, and don't have to take the medicine we shove down everyone else's throats. Still, U.S. elites will try to impose as much of a structural adjustment as they can get away with, in order to make the bottom 80% of America pay the price for the elites' spectacular screw-ups. The Washington Post has already started writing about how the current crisis demonstrates that we must cut Social Security. Look for much more of this to come.
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at October 12, 2008 07:13 PMMeanwhile, the NYT, which spent 1999 and 2000 making fun of the anti-globalization protestors for being out of step with the Washington Consensus, has now decided to make up for this by making fun of them for being right
Posted by: Donald Johnson at October 12, 2008 08:06 PMI read that NYT article. Was it supposed to be terrible? Is the joke on me here?
Posted by: Salty at October 12, 2008 08:35 PMI still say that when all this is over we'll make Argentina look like the dude who can't pay you back the fifteen bucks you loaned him last week.
Posted by: Wareq at October 12, 2008 09:12 PMSalty--I wouldn't say it was terrible, but I would say it was snide. It does at least admit that the protestors seem to have been right, but it does it in a way that hints they are/were a bunch of clowns or ideologues who don't deserve any credit for it. Back in 1999 the NYT never (AFAIK) treated the antiglobalization protestors as people with a legitimate viewpoint--instead they were all a bunch of no-nothing crackpots in turtle costumes, or worse, anarchists breaking windows or people who wanted us to live like North Koreans (that was Friedman's view). Thomas Friedman and even Paul Krugman ridiculed them on a regular basis. (Krugman, IIRC, later admitted he was partly wrong.)
It's like the Iraq War--there's no honor in being right about it from the beginning. You're only a serious person if you were wrong and then changed your mind.
Here is Krugman admitting to second thoughts about the Washington Consensus.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at October 12, 2008 09:49 PMI'll stop posting after this, but it's fun looking at old NYT columns by Tom Friedman. I just typed in "golden straitjacket" over at their website and this is one of the columns that popped up--
I might start looking for some of his old columns where he justifies bombing Serbia back into the Middle Ages, but perhaps this has been enough fun for one night.
Posted by: Donald Johnson at October 12, 2008 10:06 PMI guess Charlie Savage isn't going for his next Pulitzer; this is the kind of smarmy crap you'd find in the Washington Post's Style section.
Posted by: Nell at October 12, 2008 10:48 PMJust cause the chickens come home to roost don't mean there's fried chicken for supper. That one in every pot went out with the last depression.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at October 13, 2008 12:59 AMDonald, I remember well Friedman's column at the time of the Seattle demos:
Is there anything more ridiculous in the news today then the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle? I doubt it.These anti-W.T.O. protesters -- who are a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates, protectionist trade unions and yuppies looking for their 1960's fix -- are protesting against the wrong target with the wrong tools. Here's why:
The editorial writers at The Economist were even more snotty and condescending.
I guess Charlie Savage isn't going for his next Pulitzer
I see no reason why he can't get a Pulitzer for this.
Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at October 13, 2008 08:26 AMOn a related note, I have been wondering why is the NYSE still in New York City. Wouldn't it be cheaper to do it in another country or at least a less expensive part of the United States?
Posted by: micah holmquist at October 13, 2008 02:04 PM"...a Noah's ark of flat-earth advocates..."
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman.
Posted by: Rojo at October 13, 2008 02:21 PMCommentators Quarrel on Global Geometry
http://www.theworldiscurved.com/
Although Alan Greenspan's praise for this book is at the top of the page, George Soros and Georgie Anne Geyer also like it.
Posted by: mistah charley, ph.d. at October 14, 2008 08:12 AMWell, American is turning socialist and this just won't do.
To quote that great "diplomat" and "statesman", Henry Kissinger:
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves."
-- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Richard Nixon, about Chile prior to the CIA overthrow of the democratically elected government of socialist President Salvadore Allende in 1973
Some country - preferably a Latin American country such as Venezuela to make it all the more fitting - should a coup and overthrow the current socialist/communist American government, execute the President and imprison government officials; send death-squads to slaughter, terrorize, imprison and torture American civilians to punish them for their irresponsibility.
After all, this is what America has done many a time to many a country and to many people, even after the end of the Cold War - the attempted overthrow of Hugo Chavez comes to mind.
