Pretty much what was done in the matter of the Tobacco Settlement Agreement -- that is, all costs to the industry were passed on to the consumer who adjusted his or her behavior, appropriately -- or didn't.

Posted at August 7, 2008 3:12 PM in response to Actively Engage the Middle Class on Energy Conservation

Good point!

We should tax the oil companies for the full cost of the Iraq War -- but at the same time expect them to raise the price of gas in order to pass the tax through to the consumer who will, then, buy fuel efficient cars.

A win-win scenario.

Posted at August 7, 2008 3:06 PM in response to Actively Engage the Middle Class on Energy Conservation

'Fraid I'm not big on "authorial intention" -- for me, the text is public; who the author is doesn't much matter.*

* Although I try to keep my noggin on the qui vive when reading known polemicists.

Posted at August 7, 2008 2:53 PM in response to Of Writers and Leaders

Rather than the failure to renew the Second Bank's charter the more likely cause of the Panic of 1837 was rampant speculation in public lands abetted by Jackson's policy of running a federal government surplus -- thus, providing funds in the state banks to fuel the land speculation.

Whether depositing government funds in a "national bank" -- had the charter been renewed -- would have limited the speculation cannot be known. Personally, I think not -- "animal spirits" being much alike wherever they be found.

Posted at August 7, 2008 2:08 PM in response to Our Moment in History

[Obama] asserted that his own search for identity and his own success in law and politics could only be possible in America.

Which was, of course, the usual pandering -- utter demagogy.

Compare, Nicholas Sarkosy, son of a Hungarian immigrant father and a French Catholic and Greek Jewish mother.

Posted at August 7, 2008 1:48 PM in response to Why Is Some Campaign Oratory "Great"?

Or, it's damn hard dressing up a bunch of platitudes and demagoguery in new fangled tropes, and speech writers who can deserve what they're paid.

Posted at August 7, 2008 12:47 PM in response to Stuck In A 1980's Moment

Well, I remember Nixon's 1973 oil embargo "No Christmas lights" response -- a gesture intended solely to manipulate the people and to demonstrate to them what a bunch of sheeple they really are.

I much preferred Bush's response: "Go shopping -- the big boys, the elite, will see to the problem". At least it was honest.

Posted at August 7, 2008 11:13 AM in response to Actively Engage the Middle Class on Energy Conservation

Forgive me Ellen but . . . .

No apology necessary but . . . .

If you go to the linked page and therein, search the quoted language, you will find the quoted phrase -- whether the quotation marks around the word authentic are Garry Wills' or Leonard's, however, is hard to determine. I'm thinking they're Wills'.

As an aside -- and as an example of what Brooks is engaged in doing -- the Wills book, Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man, is generally considered the gold standard. It's, also, a great read.

Posted at August 7, 2008 10:30 AM in response to Of Writers and Leaders

Of course, as we all know, by 1932 Hoover was hopelessly out of touch; practically an overnight anachronism, unable and unwilling to shift course.

"[P]ractically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." Rexford Tugwell, leftist member of FDR's Brain Trust. Time Magazine cover, here.

Maybe, what "we all know" has been spoon fed to us and we've swallowed it down, uncritically.

Posted at August 6, 2008 10:18 PM in response to Our Moment in History

This, [people with experience with HUD fraud] insisted, was all going to finance various secret government operations and private agendas. Catherine Austin Fitts

And to purchase black helicopters?

Posted at August 6, 2008 10:04 PM in response to Mortgage Collateral Fraud