The champion of the party's Right is one Peter Orzag, member in good standing of Wall Street empire's fast response team (donk division). He's coming back hard and soft at the same time, at the "neo-pops'" oafish stabs at a people's economic agenda. Before he closes for the beating, of course, up top there's the mandatory Clintonian candy-flavored poison gas blown out at us just to demonstrate "I know and feel your pain" -- you weeble-feeble jerknecked rubes, he adds in an undertone.
That out of the way, soon enough he's down to biz, using this marvelous pivot into attack mode:
[P]olicy makers who genuinely care about American families' well-being may be tempted to pursue measures... that interfere with the workings of the market, [such as] anti-trade protectionism, constraints on hiring and firing, regulatory protections for specific industries, outsourcing restrictions, or requirements that businesses spend a certain percentage of their payroll on health care.Now that list may sound swell to a tree frog, or a rubber worker from Akron, but but but.... here come da truth, brothers and sisters:
[T]he evidence suggests it will ultimately harm the economy.The creep shamelessly bolsters his claim to gospel truth here with a viciously distortionary quote-fragment from none other than that greatest-generation hero of social engineering, Paul Samuelson, who, btw, just two years ago went out of his way to shout "go slow America -- icebergs ahead," warning against the impact on us of trans-nat globalizatioon gone wild and free. Orzag turns Samuelson on his head and gives us this cooked-up forged testimonial:
[L]eaving or compromising free trade policies [will lead to] monopoly, crony capitalism, and sloth.Yes, my fellow citizens... yes... "sloth"! The torpor of the primordial horde!
Our man here from Rubinonia, having drawn up that horror show, counters with some helpful remedies of the non-market tampering, but of the gubmint tapping, tinkering, and tidying kind -- i.e. compensation schemes -- thicker, softer, gentler, job wreck collision mats -- paid for by Uncle's tax system, which, he adds, by the way, needs a little proggy tuneup.
Sorry, guys and gals... I can write no more about this -- this slop for blind goo goo chuckleheads. Not today, anyway. So i'll just leave you with Orzag's final zing:
Trying to shut down the process of creative destruction creates macroeconomic stagnation.Translation: it hurts corporate "earnings," as they are somewhat inappropriately called.
