The Curmudgeon Lives!

Yes, boys and girls, like a phoenix rising from the ashes; like a bad penny that always turns up; like a B horror movie: "It's ALIVE!" So what motivated me to resurrect The Economic Curmudgeon?

Two things. First, this space was devoted to speaking economic truth and dispelling the myths and false notions out there, at a time of economic crisis unlike anything we'd seen since the Great Depression. And we now find ourselves teetering on the brink of yet another economic catastrophe, but the central bankers are running amok in the streets, doing their best impersonation of the Kevin Bacon character during the parade scene in Animal House: "All is well!" So I figured the blogosphere could use a dose of economic truth. Forewarned is forearmed, and all that (hopefully forearmed as in prepared for what's to come, not forearmed as in a shiver from Ray Nitschke. (Look him up on Wikipedia if you're too young to get that reference.)

The second bit of motivation has been the Democratic National Convention.

The last couple of evenings, I've gone to the gym after work, gotten in a good workout stoked on Pump Fuel and ACG3, and hopped in my car with a major adrenaline rush, then listened to the convention speeches on the radio on the way home.

Bad combo.

By the time I've gotten home, I've found myself listening to the speeches on TV, yelling at the tube the way my dear old Dad, may he rest in peace, used to when he watched football. So I figure that I have from now until November to vent, and speak more economic truth, but from a political angle. Hopefully I can persuade at least one American of legal voting age to avoid repeating the sins of the past. In any event, I'll feel better, and the risk that I throw some hard, inanimate object at my television will diminish. A new TV really isn't in the budget right now, with a daughter getting married next year.

I'll provide more detail on specifically what it was about the speeches that fueled my ire in a future post (or two, or three). I'll devote the rest of this one to a couple of disclaimers, one political and one economic, and a general observation on the state of all things political today. I'm really going to make an effort to make this blog less verbose this time around, as I recognize that previous posts taxed the attention spans of some of my followers who tend not to want to read anything longer than the back of a cereal box.

Herewith, the disclaimer. I am, today, a registered Independent. When last I posted on this space, I was a registered Republican. In the interim, I became so thoroughly disenfranchised and disgusted with our entire political system, and the divisiveness that the two-party system (aided and abetted by the media) has fomented, that I decided I could no longer affiliate with either party. I am not a Libertarian. I know a lot of people who claim to be, but when push comes to shove, they simply cannot commit, ideologically, to the tenets that Libertarianism embraces. (I think it just sounds cool to them to say they're Libertarians.)

I remain a staunch fiscal conservative. I probably lean conservative on a number of social issues, but not far off-center, and they're far less important to me, in terms of what our elected officials should be meddling with, than other things. Many of the social issues are ours to wrestle with on our own, or states' rights issues. And I'm pretty much squarely in the middle on defense: while I agree with Ronald Reagan in the principle of "Peace Through Strength," neither do I believe that the US is obligated to be the world's cop.

A little background: I grew up the son of solid, blue-collar, lower-middle-class Democrats. Dad was a straight party line voter; if the candidate had a "D" after his or her name, that was all he needed to know. I loved my Dad, but I don't advocate that approach for any voter - assess the candidates, learn their true positions, research their track record (if they have one, and if they don't, that's a red flag - and yes, that was foreshadowing of a future post topic), and vote for the best man or woman for the job.

So I carried that bias into adulthood, and had I been able to vote when I was 18 (my birthday fell a few days after Election Day, 1976), I'd have voted for Jimmy Carter. Because he was a Democrat, though I did read his book, and much of what he'd done in Georgia (by his own account, which I failed to consider at the time) resonated with me. In 1980, I did vote for Carter, and I was thoroughly aggravated that he lost to that actor from California.

By 1984, however, I'd had an epiphany, courtesy of my supervisor at my university job. He simply asked me if I believed that the government should solve all our problems, or if I believed that the government should get out of our way and let us take initiative to solve them ourselves. If I believed in the government giving us what we wanted, or in us earning what we wanted.

I was getting ready to enter an MBA program, and my business sensibilities made me lean toward the latter answers to those questions. So my supervisor told me, "Congratulations - you're a Republican." And so I registered from then until a couple of years ago.

Lest one surmise that I am in fact an IINO (Independent in name only), ie, a closet Republican who's just too ashamed or afraid of confrontation to admit it, know this: first, anyone who knows me will tell you that I have no shame in terms of what I believe, and that I'm about as fearful of confrontation as one of Michael Vick's dogs.

And second, if I could vote for any candidate for President today, it would be Evan Bayh, former Senator from Indiana, the last of the true Blue Dog Democrats. Alas, Sen. Bayh also became disenfranchised with Washington, and is now making an honest living.

Second disclaimer, this one economic: I do not let politics influence my economics. Economics, in general, is black and white; its laws largely immutable in my view. To wit, my famous claim that the laws of supply and demand, which govern economics, have not changed since we were all wearing animal skins and trading rocks (this is usually stated in response to those who blindly claim that we're in a "new economy," or that "this time things are different."

I am not a Keynesian; that experiment failed. And for the record, supply-side economics can work, if done right and left alone by those who would tweak it to achieve some Keynesian-influenced social agenda.

Forthwith, I will brook no argument from anyone not an economist themselves to the contrary. It's simply not worth arguing about economics with somebody who doesn't understand economics, but is motivated by their blind partisanship. It's like arguing about molecular biology with a history teacher (not that history teachers aren't smart, they're just not molecular biologists). So if you want to argue Keynesian economics vs. supply-side or free-market monetarist economics with me, you'd better show your credentials and line up your facts, and leave politics out of the discussion, or your cred is non-existent.

Finally, a bit of the pith that the people who used to follow this blog expect, in the form of the general political observation that I promised early on.

Someone recently asked me if Ronald Reagan could get elected today, given the state of the Republican Party, and my initial reaction was, "Sure."

I have since reversed my position. Ronald Reagan could not, in fact, get elected today, but not because of the state of the Republican Party. Quite the opposite.

You see, the people that voted in Barack Obama four years ago, devoid of qualifications or experience but long on buzzwords like "Hope" and "Change" - most of whom have already decided they're going to vote for him again, because he has a "D" after his name and has conjured up a new empty buzzword: "Foward" - those same voters simply wouldn't allow it. There's a good chance they'll turn out in sufficient number to keep Mr. Obama in office for another four years, in spite of the fact that he may well be an even worse president than was Mr. Carter.

And therein lies the rationale for my premise. Reagan ran against Carter; of course we'd expect him to win. But that was then, and this is now.

Remember the term, "Reagan Democrat?" Many Dems crossed party lines back in 1980 to vote Carter out and Reagan in. But partisanship is so rampant today that such an occurrence is nigh impossible. Today's Democrats would vote in, yes, even Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama, over Ronald Reagan.  Heck, if Bill Clinton ran for president today on the Republican ticket, Obama would win, ushered back into office by the Democrat faithful.

Now, the left would have you believe that today's Republican Party has shifted far to the right, and that's why they're so venomously opposed to it.

To which I say as emphatically as I can, "Balderdash."

Ronald Reagan was certainly more conservative than either Bush - fiscally, in most ways socially, and in terms of defense. And he was a darn sight more conservative than Mitt Romney.

No, the truth is that the left has shifted so far further left, that the center-right (Mr. Romney's turf) looks uber-right wing to them. So a man like Ronald Reagan wouldn't stand a chance of unseating Mr. Obama. And that's not a function of the Republican Party, nor of Mr. Obama's impressive resume, nor of Mr. Reagan's lack of capability. It's a function of the times, and how far left we've shifted, and how partisan we've become.

Okay, so this was longer than the back of a cereal box. Break it into chunks if you need to. Be back soon, The Curmudgeon.