Tyrrell loses Hope

R. Emmett Tyrrell:

Egads, it is going to be a long four years! It is only two weeks since the Prophet Obama's inauguration, and already he has revived memories of Boy Clinton's first 100 days. Political observers with a sense of history might well ask whether the Obama Administration will approximate the adolescent incompetence of Clinton Administration or the Pecksniffian pratfalls of the Carter Administration. Presidential historian that I am, allow me to caution my fellow citizens that here in the vestibule of the Obama Administration it is probably too early to say. Yet with the economy in crisis and American national security in the hands of a starry-eyed novice, one can argue that we are in for a reprise of the Carter years complete with the self-righteous pout.

Read the whole thing. Driving home from Rosslyn Thursday night, I was listening on C-SPAN as Obama gave his speech at the House Democratic Caucus retreat and -- man! -- can he give a great speech. His delivery was first-rate. The content, however, was ridiculous nonsense. Anti-economic gibberish in the first degree.

Mr. President, you cannot repeal the law of supply-and-demand. You might as well try to repeal the law of gravity so you can float to the moon. Bill Clinton considered, and ultimately rejected, the course you are undertaking. Why? Because the fiscal and monetary impact of such a policy will cause capital flight. You keep going down this "stimulus" road, and you will drive private investment out of the economy, guaranteed.

Economic recovery is impossible without private investment and if you think "offshoring" was bad before, you wait and see what investors do if you pursue this Weimar America agenda. Capital loves a sound currency, and we can't have a sound currency if you're going to let Nancy Pelosi double down on the stimulus/bailout boondoggles she's already rammed through the House over the past year.

We've suffered real and serious financial losses. The economy will continue to be bad no matter what you do. But this neo-Keynesian crap won't make it better, it will make it worse. You can order up "green" cars for the federal government all day long, but that's not going to fix the underlying problem, namely a capital shortage. Harvard Law school teaches lots of things. Economics, apparently, is not one of them.

It Won't Work. And the CBO agrees with me.