This article is from Harvard economist Greg Mankiw. (H/T Michael)
Excerpt:
Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:
A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)
I wonder which political party believes in most or all of these positions?
Here’s Zach Osler, a friend of the Tucson murderer.
That’s an Associated Press video.
Transcript excerpt:
“There was a lot of talk about lucid dreaming and understanding reality. . . . And there were a lot of books and movies . . . things that I never would have heard about or watched — things like Loose Change about the 9/11 conspiracy . . . He watched things like that. . . . He had basically nothing going for him, and I think he just couldn’t deal with reality anymore. . . . I know that he was experimenting with the drug, or herb or whatever it is, salvia divinorum. And from what I hear, he used it quite frequently. . . . It’s like a hallucinogenic type of effect.”
Loughner, now 22, would come over several times a week from 2007 to 2008, the Oslers said.
The boys listened to the heavy-metal band Slipknot and progressive rockers the Mars Volta, studied the form of meditative movement called tai chi and watched and discussed movies.
Loughner’s favorites included little-known conspiracy theory documentaries such as “Zeitgeist” and “Loose Change” as well as bigger studio productions with cult followings and themes of brainwashing, science fiction and altered states of consciousness, including “Donnie Darko” and “A Scanner Darkly.” . . .
Roxanne Osler [said]: “Jared struck me as a young man who craved attention and acceptance.”
This segment has been called “The Da Vinci Code on steroids.” Toward the end, the narrator says, “Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age. It serves to detach the species from the natural world and likewise, from each other. It supports blind submission to authority. It reduces human responsibility to the effect that God controls everything.”
PART II: 9/11 Was a Conspiracy
Not much to say here. You’ve seen one 9/11 “Truther” documentary, you’ve seen ‘em all. But the guys at Loose Change can’t sue for copyright infringement because, hey, it’s a “documentary,” and you can’t copyright crazy.
PART III: TOTAL FREAKING KOOKINESS!
This is the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test of Zeitgeist where, if you’ve gone along with the Jesus-Was-a-Myth stuff and the 9/11-Was-a-U.S.-Plot stuff, you’re going to find yourself throbbing helplessly in spasms of conspiratorial ecstasy, covered in kook-splooge. The U.S. government and “international bankers” scheme behind the scenes to control every damned thing in the world — and plant computer chips in your brain, to boot!
Guess who liked Zeitgeist? Jared Loughner. He liked Zeitgeist a whole lot.
Does Zeitgeist sound like right-wing Tea Party material? It’s an atheistic, anti-American, anti-capitalist movie. And that’s what Jared believed. That’s why he favorited flag-burning videos. He is the complete opposite of a Tea Party conservative.
I wonder why the left-wing mainstream news media isn’t reporting on what Jared’s friends are saying about his views?
In fact, I wonder what the left-wing media thinks of Zeitgeist? I wonder what the left-wing media thinks of Loose Change? I wonder what the left-wing media thinks of capitalism? I wonder what the left-wing media thinks on the war against Islamic extremism? I wonder what the left-wing media thinks of American exceptionalism? I wonder what the left-wing media thinks of Christian theism?
Can they afford to tell the truth about this story?
I was in the weight room when this came on – Megyn Kelly takes Democrat sheriff Clarence Dupnik to task for trying to link the Arizona shooter to the Tea Party/conservatives/Republicans.
Actually, what I get from these two videos is that political correctness is going to be a major problem. First of all, when law enforcement is politicizing crime, how can they be expected to conduct their investigation fairly? Secondly, it looks like the shooter had several run-ins with the law over drug charges, etc., but that he was able to get a firearm anyway. Why didn’t he have a criminal record? To me, this looks like another failure in law enforcement where the accused was let off easy. And Democrats are notorious for going easy on criminals.
Why do people have the impression that conservatives are more violent than liberals?
If there isn’t any evidence to connect the shooter to the Republican party, will that stop the left-wing media from linking them anyway?
But, in a move reminiscent of what we saw during Rather-gate, the left has decided to argue that the details of the shooting don’t matter, the gist of their case holds true…
They couldn’t prove the Bush memos were real, but wanted to stick with the story anyway. This was the genesis of “fake but accurate.”
They couldn’t deny that Joe Stack (who flew his plane into an IRS bldg.) quoted the Communist manifesto favorably and disliked George Bush, but labeled him the “Tea Party terrorist” anyway.
They couldn’t deny that Richard Poplawski’s only connection to Glenn Beck was that he was disappointed in Beck’s debunking of a conspiracy theory he believed in. They continue to suggest Poplawski was a fan.
They couldn’t deny that Pentagon shooter J. Patrick Bedell was a registered Democrat and a 9/11 Truther who disliked Bush, but they wanted him to be a Tea Partier as well.
They couldn’t deny that Clay Duke was a leftist inspired by a left-wing movie produced during the Bush years, so they mostly said nothing at all.
I’m leaving out a bunch more. The census worker’s death who was blamed on the right, but which turned out to be suicide. The “right-wing” shooter at the Holocaust museum who turned out to hate Christianity and Fox News. And now the latest on the Giffords shooting is that Loughner may have been anti-Semitic and targeting her because she is Jewish. Generally speaking which party is more supportive of the Jews and Israel and which one is regularly accused of being beholden to Jewish interests? The group Loughner is believed to have been part of also supports SB1070, but Giffords was known to be tough on border control, so how would shooting her advance that agenda? Once again, we’re not supposed to look that closely or ask if any of it makes sense. We’re just supposed to feel outrage at the right targets.
WINTERY KNIGHT 