The headlines proclaim that Obama wants to reduce the Federal deficit in half by the end of his first term.
He is off to a crappy start.
Month: February 2009
The franchise and the career unemployed
As we have been talking about chavs, it’s interesting to note that there are around 3m unemployed in Britain – out of a total population of 60m. Some of them are so unemployed that they have never actually had a job in their lives. But the 3m figure is deceptive, because there are other categories of welfare dependency – one of them, getting oneself classified as “disabled”. I don’t have the figures, but there are tens of thousands on disability “benefit” the socialist, non-judgemental term for passengers. This is different from unemployment benefit. Every once in a while there will be a story of someone on “disability” benefit for years whose hobby is riding mountain bikes on the weekends. Another one, a soccer fan, has been photographed refereeing soccer matches. That’s just the stupid ones, though. Then there is “family benefit” for each child born.
Then there’s publicly-funded accommodation – the projects, in Americanese – which gets more spacious with each new child. There are five- and six-children fatherless “families” living in four bedroom homes, paid for by the local taxpayers. Single mothers in these enclaves refer to two children born from the same father as “the twins”. The more responsible mothers in these areas walk their children to school, although they don’t change out of their pajamas and robes to do so. These people have a vote.
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Book V: General Comments
At first glance, from a general theory perspective, Book V doesn’t offer much, focusing as it does overwhelmingly on the tactical, that is the level of warfare most open to change, most influenced by the epoch in question. Still there are various points which from a general theory perspective are worth noting.
Bailing Out Speculators
Obama plans to bail out people who took out mortgages they cannot repay [h/t Instapundit]. This sucks. Why? Why would I be so heartless as to oppose helping people whose home ownership stands at risk due to the banking crisis?
Simple, an individual’s ability to pay their mortgage has nothing to do with the solvency of the lender who issued the mortgage. Money flows from the borrower to the lender. The fact that the lender made too many dubious loans does not in any way affect any particular individual’s ability to pay their own mortgage. Only the individual’s income and budgeting controls whether they can pay.