Posted on 05/13/2014 7:35:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Most conservatives, and just about all independents, have a huge misperception of the left. They think that the gulf between conservatism and leftism is primarily about means, not goals.
This perception is wrong. It is their goals that are irreconcilable. And until conservatives, independents and the Republican Party understand this, it will not be possible to defeat the left.
Take economic indicators. Most conservatives talk and act as if bad economic news disturbs the left as much as it disturbs them. It doesn't.
Almost everywhere the left is in control -- in California, for example -- the economic news is awful. But this has no effect on the ruling Democrats, the Los Angeles Times editorial page, New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman or others on the left.
There is one overriding philosophical reason and one political reason for this. But before I identify them, permit me to note some of the economic facts of life in California.
Unless otherwise noted, the following data have been culled by Chapman University Professor Joel Kotkin, and published in the Wall Street Journal, the Orange County Register and elsewhere. (For the record, Kotkin is a self-described "Truman Democrat" who voted for the Democrat governor Jerry Brown of California.)
--In the last 20 years, about 4 million more people have left California than came in from other states. Most of those leaving are young families.
--In the last 15 years, one-third of California's industrial employment base has disappeared. That's 600,000 jobs that have disappeared.
--California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. (The Tax Foundation)
--California's electricity prices are 50 percent higher than the national average.
--Middle-class workers, those who earn more than $48,000, pay a top income tax rate of 9.3 percent. That's higher than what millionaires pay in 47 other states.
--California's unemployment rate is fourth highest in the nation.
--From 2010-13, California produced fewer than 8,000 jobs, while the country added 510,000.
California faces enormous underfunded public employee pension obligations. (Bloomberg)
--An estimated 25 billion barrels of oil are sitting untapped in the Monterey and Bakersfield shale deposits. California is therefore sending billions of dollars to Texas, Canada and elsewhere to buy natural gas and oil that it could have produced itself.
--Twitter, Adobe, eBay and Oracle, among other major California tech companies, have moved many operations to Salt Lake City.
--Hollywood is doing more and more of its filming in Louisiana, Canada and elsewhere to avoid California taxes.
--Toyota just announced that it is moving its U.S. headquarters from Los Angeles to Dallas. This will eliminate 3,000 or more generally high-wage jobs.
--Occidental Petroleum recently announced that it is moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Houston.
--Until relatively recently, half of the country's top 10 energy firms -- ARCO, Getty Oil, Union Oil, Occidental and Chevron -- were based in California. Today, only Chevron remains, and it is gradually relocating in Houston. (Reuters)
--Houston has added nine million square feet of new office space. Los Angeles has added one million.
--Tesla will likely locate its proposed $5 billion battery factory, which would employ upward of 6,500 people, in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico or Texas. According to greentechmedia.com, California "didn't make the short list because of the potential for regulatory and environmental delays."
--California's Monterey Shale offers a potential employment bonanza for workers needing access to entry-level jobs in the high-paying energy sector. But California's green lobby is striving to deny them that opportunity. (John Husing, chief economist of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, Los Angeles Daily News)
Now back to our riddle. Why do these state-crushing economic statistics -- nearly every one of which is the result of left-wing policies -- have no effect on California's Democrats, the Los Angeles Times editorial page, New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman or almost anyone else on the left?
The answer is that they don't care. Yes, of course, as individuals with a heart, most people, right and left, care about people losing their jobs. But in terms of what matters to the left and the policies they pursue, they don't care. The left and the political party it controls do not care if their policies force to companies to leave the state (or the country). They don't care about the coming high inflation caused by Quantitative Easing (printing money) -- Krugman calls it The Inflation Obsession -- or the job-depressing effects of high taxes, or energy prices that hurt the middle class, or compelling businesses to leave.
They don't care because the left is not interested in prosperity; the left is interested in inequality and in the environment. Furthermore, the worse the economic situation, the more voters are likely to vote Democrat. The worse the economic situation, the greater the number of people receiving government assistance; the greater the number of people receiving government assistance, the greater the number of people who will vote Democrat.
Therefore, both philosophically and politically, the left has no reason to be troubled by bad economic news. And it isn't. It is troubled by inequality and carbon emissions.
One of the aholes who led that charge was Newt Gingrich writing in "To Renew America" about the 3rd wave information age replacing the production age. Our recent past has many Newt adherents and continue to export our factories.
If the GOP cared about the economy we’d be hearing about it from them. Bill Clinton defeated George H. W. Bush in 1992 running on George Carville’s , “worst economy since the Great Depression” theme even though the economy was in recovery. We are now truly in the worst economy since the Great Depression but the Republicans don’t seem to have the desire to talk about rising food, energy and health costs as well as low interest rates killing the savings of the elderly or even the number of unemployed and underemployed. It is a winning issue which Romney underplayed in 2012, allowing the Democrats to run unopposed using the “war on women” theme.
Instead the Republicans seem poised to cave in on amnesty, a major plus for the Democrats. I just don’t get it.
You don’t get it?! You have yet to realize for whom the elected politicians work for ... and it is not we the people, not for a long time now. The current crop of republicants will do as their money masters tell them to do.
I am not an oil expert but have read that off the coast of Loonacali there is oil seeping from under the sea, close enough that some of the beaches have to be cleaned. Don’t know if true but would not doubt it.
The future abundance of cheap energy should draw some industry back.
You remember the service economy, we were all going to sell insurance to each other and get rich.
If you can’t manufacture you are a third world country, we are heading that way rapidly. The left is not only pushing granny off the cliff but pushing our industrial base right behind her. When is enough, enough?
Back in the 1970’s Exxon drilled several exploration wells off the coast of Santa Barbara. They found huge deposits.
The State of Insanity then made drilling off limits.
The wells were capped off then, but the oil is still there.
As far as I know, none of the oil was ever extracted from those reserves. But yes it is seeping out and ending up on the beach.
Bet that most Cali residents have no idea of this.
Want to fix California? There is only one way to do it. Invest millions in a get rid of the rat campaign. If it has a D next to its name, don’t vote for it. If it doesn’t have a letter next to its name, it’s a D so dont vote for it.
Blitz the state for months on end. And at every level. From dog catcher to senator. Everyone. Call the Democrat a Democrat, not a communist, not a socialist, but a Democrat. Make it so painful that democrats from all over the country will feel the stigma of being a democrat.
The rats love labeling everyone else but hate being labeled. They no longer care about being called a liberal. Now it’s time to affix the Democrat label to them.
Google “Long Beach oil fields”................
Damn, I am in Ky. and knew this. Thanks Free Republic. You all make me so smart that LIV’s hate my guts. I like that.
The part I put in bold indicates that the left cares very much about bad economic news, just not in the way sane people do.
The left is the mother with Muenchausen syndrome by proxy, purposely making America deathly ill while playing the doting loving parent ostensibly dedicated to her child's well-being.
This isn’t a left vs right thing. The left wing and the right wing are attached to the same bird of prey, and the middle class is on it’s dinner menu.
Why doesn’t the left care about bad economic news? The author burned a lot of pixels to try to explain.
It is much simpler to say that the left would prefer to rule in hell than to be governed in Heaven.
They don’t care about the coming high inflation caused by Quantitative Easing (printing money) — Krugman calls it The Inflation Obsession
...............
I’m not so sure the USA is going to get that inflation caused by Quantitative Easing (printing money). Not with the USA producing an extra million barrels @ day for the last three years and officially slated by the IEA to do the same thing again in 2014 and 2015. (and unofficially through 2018,)
More USA oil reroutes capital flows around the world to the benefit of the dollar. That’s why despite Quantitative Easing (printing money)for the last three years the dollar has gone sideways. The downward pressure on the dollar of QE has been met with upward pressure on the dollar by rising oil production—(rising oil production has clipped an average of an extra 100 billion annually off the federal deficit for the last three years. Three year from now that number will go up to 200 billion as growing oil drilling adds more money to federal coffers. In addition to that rising oil production shrinks the trade deficit. And will continue to do so.
The value of the dollar is a function of the future prospects for the economy—just as the value of a stock is function of the future prospects for the company it represents. The future of the USA economy is bright. Much brighter than is apparent today.
“They are counting on you to go on, to work to the limit of the inhuman and to feed them while you last - and the span of each succeeding victim will be shorter, and while you’ll die to leave them a railroad, your last descendant-in-spirit will die to leave them a loaf of bread. This does not worry the looters of the moment. Their plan-like all the plans of all the royal looters of the past-is only that the loot shall last their lifetime.”
Ayn Rand
So long as men continue to produce and not demand the payment they are owed, they will never produce so little that the men of the club won’t have something to seize.
Why should they care about a few million merely unemployed? At least they're not dead.
Isn’t it amazing that “Gaea” produces light sweet crude oil, yet the left rejects it?
Absolutely amazing.
IMHO
“The left is the mother with Muenchausen syndrome by proxy, purposely making America deathly ill while playing the doting loving parent ostensibly dedicated to her child’s well-being.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Excellent, for what it is worth, I consider that to be a fine example of saying in one sentence more than some could have said in an entire essay. It illustrates perfectly that liberalism actually IS a mental illness.
The dollar does not seem to be going sideways when I pay the ever growing grocery bills.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.