Below is one of the most amazing interview clips you’ll ever see. Tom Ricks, one of America’s most respected (and feared) investigative journalists, lasts 60 beautiful seconds on Fox News before the producer realizes he’s off script and shuts him down. This belongs in the category of, “Speak truth to power until your power goes out.”
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Andrew,
O’Donnell was interrupting and putting a lot of blue pipe smoke in the room, no doubt. Given our political culture, he won the exchange. But Schiff is a one trick pony. His bottom line in all his analysis is always the same: that you can’t borrow from Peter to pay Paul forever. You’ve got to produce, not just borrow and spend. Because you’re not doing that, the end is nigh.
But the end never comes because he’s not looking at the production side of the equation (which is, in fact, substantial). In a modern society, a lot gets produced and that means that, at the margins, a lot can be distributed. Medicare looks like it will bankrupt the system, and it could, but it won’t because politicians, when push comes to shove, will steer just clear of the brink.
Meanwhile, the US economy will rumble along at 2% growth (on average) for the next 50 years. Our children won’t live in a dystopia; they’ll live in a much richer society than the one we live in today. Doomsayers like Schiff make poor politicians, and O’Donnell illustrated that (even if it was a obnoxious and unfair in the way he did it). Being a purist ignores the way the game is played.
–Santi
Woah. I just posted that as a reminder that the notion of media as partisan propaganda is not some novel insight, but an obvious reality that saturates our ‘news’ coverage. That you actually believe the title of that video and think that O’Donnell won that exchange… man.
I left before the election because you had become some ranting tribalistic true believer, hardly worth my time. I figured that might pass when the passion of the election died down. Apparently the change was more substantial. Have a nice life.
Wow. You’re awfully prickly of late. At the level of rhetoric, O’Donnell cornered Schiff. I didn’t say he won the substantial argument (since none was possible by his cutting Schiff off).
My point is that, so long as the long trend in the economy is roughly 2% growth, politics in the United States is not likely to be receptive to Schiff-like libertarianism. Theoretically, if the world turned libertarian, economic growth might double to, say, 4% or more, but people are relatively content if things are generally moving in the growth direction. And if libertarian theory ever got put into practice, it might not work as well as you imagine.
–Santi