Monday, November 18, 2013

Et tu, Slate?

John Dickerson at ultra-liberal Slate confesses the demise of Obama's credibility. The demise is, more accurately, the loss of the public's credulousness. Obama hasn't changed at all.

He's no less credible now than when he began. 

3 comments:

  1. Sigh...We get the government we deserve.

    Ben

    ReplyDelete
  2. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyNovember 18, 2013 at 7:34 AM

    Even McLIghtworker's home town newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, led its editorial page with this:

    Stop digging. Start over.

    As Friday dawns, here's what a health insurance crisis looks like to many millions of Americans: Barely six weeks shy of 2014, they do not know whether they will have medical coverage Jan. 1. Or which hospitals and doctors they might patronize. Or what they may pay to protect themselves and their families against the chance of medical and financial catastrophe. How much, that is, they may pay in order to satisfy the Democratic politicians and federal bureaucrats who are worsening a metastasizing health coverage fiasco...


    This is no train wreck. Train wrecks are accidents. This is an example of sticking your hand in the garbage disposal. Or, as the product liability lawyers warn against... DO NOT "iron clothing while wearing it"; "operate while intoxicated"; "use appliance while bathing"; "insert into penis".

    The Jeebuscare debacle is simply another example of how the McLightworker Administration has suspended activity in the American economy with policy uncertainty.

    Policy uncertainty directly affects economic activity. Messrs. Baker, Bloom and Davis summarize their case: "When businesses are uncertain about taxes, health-care costs, and regulatory initiatives, they adopt a cautious stance. Because it is costly to make a hiring or investment mistake, many businesses naturally wait for calmer times to expand. If too many businesses wait to expand, the recovery never takes off." [...]

    Baker, Bloom and Davis make use of a statistical technique for which Christopher Sims won a 2011 Nobel Prize in economics. They find that restoring 2006 levels of policy uncertainty could increase industrial production by 4% and employment by 2.3 million jobs over current baseline estimates—enough to bring unemployment down by about 1.5 percentage points.

    --- WSJ (9/24/13)

    Who is going to buy a health policy now if they think their old policy, which they preferred because it was better and cheaper, might become available again? For one year. Or maybe longer. We don't know. Who can say?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Georgie,

      The 'Chicago Tribune' is a conservative newspaper. Why would you be surprised that it criticised Obama?

      Admittedly, it did support Obama in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, but mainly because of the Republicans' ability to choose unelectable candidates.

      The 'Chicago Tribune' couldn't advise a vote for the Republican candidates in 2008 and 2012, even after supporting George W Bush in 2004.

      Delete