bad governments

July 6, 2010
Berlin, Germany

Last Friday, I read about how the US workforce shrank by over 650,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. Private sector hiring was also less than expected, suggesting that joblessness in the US will remain sluggish.

Always ready to spin a bad story, US politicians immediately began heralding the jobs data as clear evidence that the tide was turning, that the US economy is headed in the right direction, and that their lavish stimulus plans are working.

This gorilla math is truly amazing; it’s the doublethink from 1984 that makes 2+2=5.  So… I decided to do a little number crunching of my own, and the results are pretty incredible.
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June 29, 2010
Oxford, England

My apologies for not writing to you yesterday… I was angry (a rare occurrence for me), and I hate writing to my friends when I’m angry. You see, the G8/G20 summits took place over the weekend in Toronto, and everything about these events simply boils my blood.

To me, there’s nothing more utterly worthless than a bunch of corrupt, irrelevant, incompetent bureaucrats who generate enormous pomp and circumstance to gather together at taxpayer expense in order to accomplish absolutely nothing.

Yet this is what happens at these ‘summits’ year in, year out.  They’re not exactly staying at the Holiday Inn Express, either. The events are always in some posh resort where legions of underlings can enjoy champagne and filet mignon, courtesy of Joe Public, all the while their bosses strut and glad hand in front of the cameras.

This year, the focus of the summits was on the state of the world economy. They spent the weekend arguing, debating, and deal making… yet by Sunday evening, the only real accord reported by the group was an insipid statement about halving budget deficits by 2013.

The truth is, these summits carry absolutely no weight whatsoever; the G8/G20 are not sovereign bodies with any authority to enforce any of the resolutions. At the end of the day, each of the member countries is going to march to the beat of its own drum, no matter what it may have signed up for at the summit.

Regardless, the media ate it up.  Newspaper headlines around the world heralded the governments’ progress to reduce their budget deficits… apparently failing to realize that half of a budget deficit is still a budget deficit, generating yet another uptick to the national debt.
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