Politics: September 2008 Archives
Ace of Spades HQ: Where's That Credit Crunch?
Gabriel Malor looks at the most recent Federal Reserve data on commercial bank loans and leases and finds that credit growth is slowing but credit isn't contracting.
Final Vote Results for Roll Call 674
Oklahoma's Sullivan, Lucas, and Fallin refused to eat the "crap sandwich" aka the bailout bill. Good on 'em. (More here from House conservatives about what was wrong with the proposed bailout.)
Bad News For The Bailout - Forbes.com
Where did that $700 billion bailout number come from? "'It's not based on any particular data point,' a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. 'We just wanted to choose a really large number.'" Via Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times, who comments:
"They made it up to be sufficiently ginormous to frighten everyone into rapid action.
"And it worked."
(Via Michelle Malkin.)
Scientist explains conservatism's success - Crunchy Con
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt:
"I would say that the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.
"When Republicans say that Democrats 'just don't get it,' this is the 'it' to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label 'elitist.'...
"But now imagine society not as an agreement among individuals but as something that emerged organically over time as people found ways of living together, binding themselves to each other, suppressing each other's selfishness, and punishing the deviants and free-riders who eternally threaten to undermine cooperative groups. The basic social unit is not the individual, it is the hierarchically structured family, which serves as a model for other institutions. Individuals in such societies are born into strong and constraining relationships that profoundly limit their autonomy."
