Steve

Friday Ark #218

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

Cats

Dogs

Other Vertebrates

Birds

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

  • x

Didn’t Make It

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

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Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe is on hiatus
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings

    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival

Brooks in Fantasyland

This entry was posted in Economics on by

In the course of pondering the appropriate fate of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler David Brooks provides some misdirection to his readers.
First, and apparently to mask his normal right of center leanings, he tells us who the real bogeyman is:

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

Well, yes, as are rent seekers everywhere, they are miscreants. But are they really a bigger threat to a healthy economy than those politicians who continually enable them at the national, state and local level?
He closes his essay with the following:

But the larger principle is over the nature of America’s political system. Is this country going to slide into progressive corporatism, a merger of corporate and federal power that will inevitably stifle competition, empower corporate and federal bureaucrats and protect entrenched interests? Or is the U.S. going to stick with its historic model: Helping workers weather the storms of a dynamic economy, but preserving the dynamism that is the core of the country’s success.

Excuse me!??
Brooks must be living in an alternate reality; or perhaps is simply delusional.
This country’s slide into progressive corporatism began long ago and dramatically accelerated from the mid 19th through the 20th centuries.
If you want a root cause of the current economic fiasco you need look no further than the financial, industrial and agricultural structures that have been created over the past 200 years by our politicians. Yes, often at the behest of corporate rent seekers.
Our federal, state and local politicians did not have to choose to entwine themselves in a web of corporatism. But they did and it has had exactly the effects that Brooks called out: stifled competition and protection of entrenched interests.

Plus the bonus effect, inter alia, of the current financial crisis.

Friday Ark #217

This entry was posted in Bird Blogging Cat Blogging Dog Blogging Friday Ark Invertebrate Blogging Pet Blogging Weekend Cat Blogging on by

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?

Visit all the boarders, Link to the Ark and check back for updates through Sunday afternoon!

You can board the Friday Ark by submitting your post here, leaving a comment or a trackback to this post or emailing fridayark AT themodulator.org.

You can find previous editions at the not quite up to date Arkives page.

ALERT -11/14 11:30 AM EDT: Updates will be slow or possibly not at all until after 4:30 PM EDT due to offline obligations.

Cats

Dogs

Birds

Other Vertebrates

Invertebrates

In Memoriam

Didn’t Make It

  • x

Exceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)

  • x

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.

Cat folks: remember to submit your links to:

Birders: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks.

For the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles.

Dog folks: remember to submit your links to:

  • The Canine Carnival hosted by Pamibe
  • The Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings

    • has been out of operation since July 2007

For other current carnivals check out The Blog Carnival and The TTLB Uber Carnival