"It's the fault of the left-wing intellectuals, who should have been giving a counter-view!"

By whom? The nebulous "they?"

Good Blog Tom.

Apparently much of the world contracted the same fever, a love of money instead of value. Artappraiser found a good article, mentioned on David Seaton's blog:

The Color of China
by Minxin Pei and Jonathan Anderson
The National Interest
03.03.2009

China is also in the money-instead-of-value trap, trying to offer economic growth to maintain legitimacy, while allowing social services to wither. This in a country with rising income inequality.:
"China has no capital-gains tax, property tax or inheritance tax. Its income tax is so ineffectively enforced that it generates only a very small portion of government revenues. At present, income inequality in China has reached a level close to that of Latin America."

Love of money, or maybe more generally, power, is at least one root of evil. But I don't begrudge talented and hard working business types their success, only the proportion. If we keep a graduated income tax, with no cap, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet would still be on top. One can't have success without failure, but the distance is too great between the winners and losers. I will never swim as fast as Michael Phelps, but he's not Superman, just a good swimmer. When one person is worth a several million times another, there needs to be some kind of adjustment, some appropriate handicapping to keep the race worth running.

Kraut is just spewing out the same propaganda he always does. These people no longer believe in truth, I do not think they ever did. In their minds,everybody lies. Your job as a pretend journalist is to make the lie tenable.

MSM has its own fairness doctrine. Let someone like Kraut talk and then let a 'liberal' speak. Now we have both 'sides' covered.

You have to hand it to some of these guys. Brass balls. The current economic crisis is:

The fault of poor and powerless people who took on mortgages they could not afford.

The fault of the Dems for letting poor and powerless people get mortgage financing.

The fault of Obama for not fixing the entire mess in seven weeks.

The fault of the left wing for scaring businessmen

Silver lining? The electorate is not buying it. 15%-20% 'buy' Rush. 72% have a favorable view of our New Prez. Probably 80% despise Kraut and every single thing he stands for.

Keep up the good fight Tom. We must be vigilant and stand up to lies as they constantly flow across the media.

Talk to this guy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS86uS0Sq2E

Conservatives as a whole seem to lack cognition, the power of perception, learning and reasoning.

There are those of them who do, the elected and party officials and media elites, who use their intellect to keep the impassioned, misfits, and misanthropes in lock step.

I've given up talking to them. I value both my physical and mental health too much to take the risk.

The "commanding heights" comment by Krauthammer is a reference to Hayek's argument that society needs to reject the tyranny of the Planners. Hayek grouped the matter of state mandated means of production and "social improvement" policies as a species of not letting something happening. The idea of spontaneity as a preservable resource is central to the thinking.

To argue with this idea does not require a vindication of "planning" but a questioning of how well the means of preserving spontaneity has actually worked in the systems favored by these lovers of freedom.

In regards to the idea of a command economy, J K Galbraith wrote his work, The New Industrial State, as proof that a cabal of dreaded "planners" were the men behind the curtain producing the appearance of spontaneity. One could do worse than model one's discourse with the other side the aisle upon his example. It shifts the challenge to the other side to show how they are carrying out what they declared to be the highest thing.

Or if that seems like too much work, one could always say:

"You said that your system would create value and create opportunities but my money is crap and my children are playing musical chairs with thousands of other people over the right to sit on the remaining deck chairs of the Titanic. If you believe so much in the idea of personal responsibility, take responsibility for that."

It's not my fault! You did not stop me!

How immature can one be? It's about being the grown up, being the parent. Once one attains a certain level of wealth and power, it is up to those individuals to use it wisely. At the end of the day, if they exhibit self-restraint, it will not prevent their missing a meal for the remainder of their days. THAT is what is forgotten by these imbeciles who made so much money and expand their power at the expense of others. By that I do not mean they did not share their wealth, I mean that they destroy the wealth of others.