Rational Thought

“Once you’ve reached a certain number of points, you become a recognized user. Congratulations: your comments will be published instantly from now on. Our editors will still review your comments after they’ve been published and will remove them if they don’t meet our standards. When that happens, you’ll lose points. Lose enough points and you’ll revert to new user status.” Or banned. I imagine they left that part out for a reason. What could it be? I recommend you read the whole post and match your distillation with mine.

http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/

So, correct thinking, from the moderator’s perspective, is rewarded and the inverse is punished. Neat.

“Sorry, but this account has been banned from posting comments”

Apparently I’ve been banned from posting on Reuters articles/blogs for reasons unknown and uncommunicated with no recourse. For context, I”ve participated actively online since 1986 and have never been banned/restricted in any forum. None.

One might conclude that “thoughtful conversation” represents speech that comports with a moderator’s worldview. If that’s the case, I’m proud not to have earned Reuters approbation.

Over at Ms. Magazine blog you’ll find an article entitled “A Feminist Economist Speaks Out: Deficits are a Grrrl’s Best Friend” that’s unintentionally hilarious in its absurdity. Be sure to read the comments.

I too responded with a comment but apparently the moderator found it too offensive to post. I’ve reproduced it here:

The magical thinking behind this article is breathtaking. It is the inflationary currency devaluation insanity that most advanced economies learned not to engage in decades ago. Recall the stagflation, price controls, astronomical interest rates, gas rationing and general malaise of the ’70s under Nixon and Carter? You don’t because you’re too young? Educate yourself and you’ll see why responsible people wish to avoid it.

The premise of this article is a non sequitur. Think printing. A mouse click in the Treasury is NO different than printing Dollars to increase the money supply when it isn’t supported by growth in the economy. Issuing Treasury Bonds is selling debt and is exactly like a national credit card. The global economy buys these bonds which must be paid back by USA taxpayers WITH INTEREST. Failure to make scheduled payments is called Sovereign Debt Default. If you wish to understand how the inability to print dollars makes a difference, read about any state that’s in financial trouble due to abysmal bond ratings (think California, Illinois, etc.). The low credit rating means less interest and more risk in buying their bonds because of mismanagement of state economies, i.e. structural deficits (spending more than your revenues). These states have higher borrowing costs. There’s a reason many states have balanced budget amendments.

Want to see the future this “feminist economist” (what the heck is that?) would produce? Look at Greece, who spent 115% of their annual GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for years. They’re being bailed out by the EU (really, the frugal Germans, Europe’s largest economy). Point being, no entity is large enough to rescue the USA if we continue on this unsustainable path. The USA, with 5% of the global population produces 25% of global GDP.

Bottom line: Spending does not create economic growth. It’s exactly the inverse. Also, don’t source your information from ideologues who bend facts to suit their world view. Anyone who places “feminist” before their job title falls into this category.

A timely observation. Make your voice heard.

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.” – Edmund Burke

Ms. Docherty:

Please, spare me the victory lap! Being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Federal Government and their UAW cronies, it seems GM Management has picked up the politician’s predilection for lying by omission while insulting our intelligence. What arrogance!

Regarding the GM balance sheet, those of us paying attention know that the U.S. and Canadian governments decided, more or less arbitrarily, to classify some $6.7 billion of its aid as debt and an estimate of $52 billion in equity. That $52 billion represents nearly 90% of the government money given to General Motors. None of that has been repaid.

According to TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky: “I think the one thing that a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay back the loan. And it isn’t from earnings….It’s actually from another pool of TARP money that they’ve already received. I don’t think we should exaggerate it too much. Remember that the source of this money is just other TARP money.”

Understanding that the last real, private company CEO was summarily dismissed by the current administration’s Mandarins, it’s obvious why you would lick the hands of your masters by carrying out their political directives. Pretending it is otherwise is disingenuous and only adds to the fury of taxpayers funding this outrageous crony capitalism. You know there’s only one real way for GM to regain respect of the cognoscenti.

Sincerely,

Ron Bischof

On Apr 24, 2010, at 1:27 PM, Your GM Team wrote:

Susan E. Docherty
Vice President, U.S. Marketing

“The law [in Switzerland], finally approved in a 1994 national referendum, guaranteed health care for everyone by requiring everyone to have insurance. It amounted to a law recognizing health care as a human right…. They choose their own doctors and their own insurance company, and the whole country is covered. True to its national reputation, Switzerland devised a health care system that’s been praised as efficient and neutral. Basic insurance is the same price for everyone. Also true to the Swiss reputation, it’s turned out to be expensive. … Given an aging population and high-tech medicine, some say costs are bound to rise three percent or four percent a year. Health care reform [in Switzerland] has been more expensive than reformers predicted.” –CBS’s Richard Roth