It is very confusing to keep up with conservative economic talking points philosophy, because one minute they’re all “deficits don’t matter!” and then a couple years later they turn around and decide that deficits will ruin the U.S. economy, unless the deficit came from tax cuts for the wealthy job creators, in which case they actually don’t matter anymore and might even be GOOD for the economy maybe! And even though conservatives used to yammer on about competition and the free market, Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal has broken it to us that competition is bad too! But only if it’s between the “public economy” and the “private economy,” which we are pretty sure is a completely made up distinction that means absolutely nothing. Anyway, the history of the “public economy” has something to do with Medicare, JFK, and the Voting Rights Act, and if Barack Obama wins in 2012 then the public economy will win and THEN the U.S. will no longer be the Greatest Country on Earth.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
For a long time, the United States had one economy. Now we have two economies that compete for America’s wealth: A private economy and a public economy. The 2012 election will decide which will be subordinate to the other. One economy will lead. The other will follow…
There was one big event [after the erosion of private sector unions] that convinced Democrats that their public economy was equal to or better than the private economy. It has to do with the Democratic Party’s moral identity. After JFK’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson passed the building blocks of the Great Society, notably Medicare and Medicaid. But most importantly came the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The legislative events of that period (no matter that they passed with bipartisan votes) convinced the Democratic Party once and for all of government’s moral efficacy. Public spending, conclusively, was now a public good…
Today the private and public economies are in head-to-head competition for the nation’s wealth—with the private economy calling that wealth capital or income, and the public economy calling it tax revenue and making moral claims for spending tax revenue… President Obama is telling the private economy it must subordinate itself to the public economy’s moral efficacy. The passage in 2010 of the Affordable Care Act, with no Republican support, was justified as a 1960s-type act of moral necessity. The private economy, in his view, can’t compete on that basis. …Those are the two poles in an historic battle over who runs the American economy.
Hear that? The “private economy” and the “public economy” are in an epic competition and ONLY ONE CAN WIN. Like yesterday, for example, we watched a firefighter try to spend a hundred dollar bill at the local mom and pop shop but see, after the cashier looked at it reallll careful-like and saw that this hundred dollar bill had come from the “public economy” he was like “hey pal, PUBLIC SECTOR MONEY is no good in this store because it will subordinate all the private sector money that a Job Creator might spend in here later so, good day sir.” Except that didn’t actually happen, and wouldn’t ever actually happen, because money is money. Contrary to Daniel Henninger’s wild fantasies, there are not two separate, mutually exclusive spheres of economy activity wherein public sector employees and agencies ONLY receive and disburse between and among themselves and tell private sector employers and businesses to suck it. And given a choice between the private and public sectors running the economy (a division that is, as explained, absent much if any relationship to reality) would you want to put a bunch of unelected rich oligarchs in charge, who have no real accountability and no incentive outside of maximizing short term profit for shareholders? Because Daniel Henninger does. And finally, is the private sector really so delicate that it can’t compete with these losers? Daniel Henninger says yes.
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Sounds like the script to "Mad Max 4".
Someone please warn Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Halliburton about the looming threat of the public economy.
Eisenhower would shit down this guy's throat is he were still alive.
Looks like this century's answer to the Military Industrial Complex is the Political Financial Complex.
Ike must be rolling over in his grave…
And there's a reason why the movie never materialized.
Incorrect: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/
Yes, but it's a reboot…and "BANE" plays Max! What are the odds???
A re-boot?? Ugh.
So cometh the apocalypse.
In a World Where JFK was ASSASINATED!….
Welcome, to Capital Dome.
Beyond Derpadome.
I'm much more interested in the pubic economy.
Well, that part that doesn't involve vaginas, anyway. They're revolting.
I thought the cocks were revolting.
Only in Texas.
REAL MERKINS FOR A PUBIC OPTION!!!
My research reveals that's an economy of high demand and low supply.
The parting on the left is now a parting on the right.
Sounds more like a parting in the middle.
My apologies to to anyone here who loves the "dismal science", but shit's just made up, yo.
And you think those of us who love the dismal don't realize that?
Hell, I figured out the first chapter of Samuelson.
I quit in my last year of my economics degree when I asked my prof "So, you're saying all this only exists if people believe in it?" and when she reluctantly applied in the affirmative, I decided to go and do theology or something where they admit that from the outset.
I'll be in the bunker.Don't bother knocking.
Knock, knock.
Dave's not home man.
True Story: Fraternity brother, "Dave" woken up by 2 sheriffs on a Saturday, and told to go get "Joe," who had bounced a check, out of bed. Dave comes back, and tells the sheriffs that Joe said to say he was sleeping, and could they come back later. No, they kindly replied, and Dave left again. When he returned, I swear to the FSM and Space Ghost he said "Joe told me to tell you he's not here."
I thought the only two economies were the 'Dancing Horse/Car Elevator' economy and one (mine) that is based on 'Uncooked Ramen Noodles'?
Uncooked? You should just mix it with some hot engine coolant that you extract from your neighbor's car when he gets home from work in the evening.
Uncooked? Why didn't you get your manservant to prepare your noodles properly?
Sometimes you just gotta choose between paying the butler or paying the water bill.
Guess which one is winning?
What about hobo beans!!!?? EVERYTHING I'VE GOT IS IN HOBO BEANS!!!!
The thing that drives me crazy about all this is that the fucking "market forces" guys have been eating the lunch of public goods like schools, infrastructure, and social services. And as soon as a few people start to ask questions about the debasement of things that really shouldn't be subjected to price tags, let alone the lowest-common-denomenator syndrome of the finance world, the "public economy" is suddenly portrayed as this cash-hungry beast that will eat its own young and all our precious small businesses for just a few more tax dollars, when the evidence points overwhelmingly to the very opposite conclusion.
Oops, what I meant to say was Obama taxes 'Mericuh rabble rabble rabble.
It is called eating the seed corn. And it is stupid.
Stupid public sector with their 'morals' on how to spend revenue. Everyone knows bribes and whores is how you win business!
It's CALLED incentivizing!
Aren't the two economies just Us vs Them?
For these guys it's me vs. world
"President Obama is telling the private economy it must subordinate itself to the public economy’s moral efficacy."
Well, we know that the private economy is holding all the aces when it comes to moral efficacy.
Yea, they estimate about 5 trillion bucks of aces right now. First time in history these fuckers have hoarded such a load.
That's just the fraction they haven't offshored yet.
This is the kind of theory that Paul Krugman could debunk while he takes a shit.
Or Bizarro World Krugman?
He won the Dumbel Prize in Suckenomics.
Edit: The other guy, not Krugman, who I idolize like he invented Vaseline.
yes.
The theory would floating in the bowl after Krugman is done.
The GOP was fighting for a Greater Depression these last four years as the private economy was stumbling along and state and local governments shed public sector jobs, they blocked public works projects, so they might have NoBama No More.
What is this? The "I miss slavery" act of 2012?
"You let them darkies vote 45 years ago, and look at where it's gotten us!"
Serious-Fuckin-ly?
I believe that's the "between the lines" reading, yes.
Yeah, the continuing "Butthurt Level At Plaid!!!!" over the n*CLANG*s being allowed to vote is just fucking amazing. Didn't "dog whistle" used to mean inaudible? These fuckers just don't care anymore. I console myself that it can only be total desperation that they are pulling out all the stops this early.
We're gonna need a fucking Ark to navigate the flop sweat by November.
Even if it wasn't a steaming pile of horseshit, we still don't want to see your privates in our public. Hmmph.
RAFALCA LIBEL!
Unfortunately, quantum physicists have proven that Timothy Geithner is U.S. Treasurer in every parallel universe.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!
Ah, the theory of multiversal gravitational convergence, or DERP Sucks.
Q-bits, 4-bits, 6-bits, a dollar…
What's in the box!?!?
Damned cat found some yarn- it's all entangled now.
When my ex-father in law bitched about "the gubment taking" his money. Where I pointed out that "his" money had printed on Federal Reserve Note.
There was one big event [after the erosion of private sector unions] that convinced Democrats that their public economy was equal to or better than the private economy.
The Great Depression? The New Deal? Ever hear of it? It probably saved our country. It certainly enabled us to ramp up the war machine after the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor
Douchehat.
…There are two economies at war, the public, the private, and the industrial, NO, THREE economies at war…
Cardinal Fang! Bring out the comfy chair!
If there's really a war between public and private economies, Tim Geithner is a double agent.
Look, after the 2008 crash, Daniel Henninger blamed it on Jews and secularists who made people feel bad about saying "Merry Christmas" and therefore Wall Street lost its ethics. The WSJ has elsewhere largely placed the blame for the economic collapse on the African-American community, for buying homes.
This theory means they're improving.
BTW, I'm pretty sure that Henninger has received a Pulitzer for his commentary. Yeah. We're fucked.
Not snark, for final BTW. He factually and actually did blame the collapse on Jews and secularists.
"Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions."
Yes, as a native Southerner, I can confirm that any mention of Northerners in the context of money and Christmas hating is, indeed, a reference to Jews.
Morel efficacy = yummy.
Elementary, my dear Blab.
Here's how it works. I have a job, right? Get paid? I spend my paycheck on ammo and tithing. Now, if it was a check from the government, I'd give it to my daughter to get an abortion. It's not rocket surgery, libtards!
This might be my favorite comment ever.
"Lyndon Johnson passed the building blocks of the Great Society, notably Medicare and Medicaid. But most importantly came the Voting Rights Act of 1965.The legislative events of that period (no matter that they passed with bipartisan votes) convinced the Democratic Party once and for all of government’s moral efficacy."
Yes, because the private sector was doing a bang up job of not being racist and affording the proper civil rights to our citizens, and sick poor people enjoyed the illnesses that they died from, because at least there were no pesky government aid programs anywhere to help them pay for it. Why did the public sector think there was anything to be done? The free market had that nonsense exactly where it wanted it.
The legislative events of that period (no matter that they passed with bipartisan votes) convinced the Democratic Party once and for all of government’s moral efficacy.
Why should they believe different now, just because Republicans have gone off the deep end of paranoid stupidity?
Oh jeez, doesn't he know that the public economy is paid out to the private economy?
How the hell does Halliburton get paid anyway, motherfucker?
Even the DMV where I live has to pay rent on its slot in a strip mall. That's money in the pockets of the private economy.
This proves that the private economy is morally weak.
I disagree. There are three economies: the public economy, the private economy and – the one most of us are in – the economy of hobo beans.
The economy of hobo beans only works so long as you don't lacerate your hand on the can and need stitches and a tetanus shot.
Then we'll move on to the economy of dry dog food. If, you know, you survived the gangrene.
Oh thank God. I thought my hobo bean futures were worthless and had been overtaken by dry Ramen noodles.
Oh, they're both long term investments at the rate we're going. Especially if the fucking Reeps find a way to hold on to Congress, or a worse result happens that I simply cannot force myself to type…
2 words to consider.
Murdock. Publication.
Do with it what you will.
What I most wonder, in this New Gilded Age of robber banksters who buy up elections: Why has there been such a dearth of surveyors, carefully aiming their votes at these Kochs and Adelsons from a safe distance of about 1000 yards? I mean, are we liberals truly so devoid of initiative?
My dog won't even take a shit on a Murdoch publication.
Not that I would try to make him do so of course–I'm not an animal abuser, for God's sake…
He’s forgetting the third economy, the so called underground economy. The underground economy is what we will all use to trade hobo beans for homemade wine and cardboard box rent after corporations get done with us.
Unless you live in Humboldt and grow the pots.
You know a place I can trade my hobo beans for wine? What is this magical place?!
I live in one of the more productive wine regions in NY and I have my own vines so I make between 15 and 20 gallons of wine and port per year. I’m not saying it’s great but I have bought worse and it does contain alcohol. When we are forced to form a Wonkette collective I will gladly share.
15-20 gallons of wine won't go far with the Wonkette crowd.
But your offer to share is lovely, and highly socialistic of you.
Terlet wine?
Daniel Henninger is an economist in the same way Sarah Palin is a political analyst.
That photo up top should be the picture in the dictionary next to the definition for "derp."
It's not every day that someone admits to being fascist.
So Henninger does have that going for him.
I'd like Mr. Henninger to point out how many times in the Constitution it says that the economy should be private whenever possible. And then compare that to how many times it says in the Constitution that government exists to help US citizens get by. One of those figures would be zero, and the other would be at least three depending on how you interpret various phrases.
General Welfare sounds all socialist-y
And Obama is just gutting the Military-Industrial-Socialist Complex.
General Socialist C. Welfare, reporting as ordered!
And what's this about "securing the blessings of liberty"? Secured? Like in a prison? Liberty must be free! Get your government hands off my liberty!
I got yer private economy right… here.
And I have a free market that was just made for your private economy.
Is yer stock up or down?
Daniel Dildo Henninger apparently forgot that when he fills his Mercedes with gasoline which he pays for from his private economy, he pays a tax so he can have a safe road from Wall Street to the Hamptons which was built by the public economy. Condescending goat fucker.
Harry Truman wanted a one-armed economist (no more "On the other hand…"). I'd prefer one of the headless variety (as a result of votes, of course).
A complete inability to understand how the economy works seems to be a prerequisite to work at the Wall Street Journal, like on Wall Street itself.
Well, you have to admit, The stimulus project where top marginal rates went over 90 percent, Conservation measures went into place, bugs bunny was selling war bonds and jobs weren't outsourced, and then we made college cheap and landed on the moon a few years later… I forget. It was one of those pansy ass wars that only lasted 4 years or so.
Yeah, its always Wall Street vs. Washington until one of them needs some cash. Then they crawl into bed together and have sloppy make-up sex like the kids on Jersey Shore.
UGH!!!1!!
I stand in awe of this guy's towering logic.
It made my jaw drop, too.
So what about companies that get government tax breaks and incentives? Are they in the Private Economy or the Public Economy? Or do they make that silly hybrid economy called THE FUCKING ECONOMY WE ACTUALLY HAVE??
I love it when you get righteously angry.
That's the Hybrid Eclectic Economy.
and THEN the U.S. will no longer be the Greatest Country on Earth
There have been a lot of Greatest Countries of Earth some of them don't exist and others aren't so great anymore: Roman Empire, British Empire, The Third Reich, Ottoman Empire, etc.
Good thing that Amerikkka is the REAL Greatest Country on Earth and will last forever.
Eintausand yahre, anyway.
And the banksters are sacking Rome, pillaging and looting as fast as their soft little paws and tubby little bellies can move.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Coming soon to a country near you!
Lisa Simpson: I know you're happy now, but it's not gonna last forever.
Homer Simpson: Everything lasts forever, Lisa.
The WSJ doesn't hate the public economy when it's handing out subsidies and tax breaks.
They just hate spending on anyone but themselves and their friends. If the government quit subsidizing mining companies, ranchers, farmers and energy companies, not to mention the criminals who run our banks, we could balance the budget next week.
Maybe the public economy will cut off the head of the private economy and lighting will come down out of the sky. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!1111
That is why Da Bulls can never play against Da Bears.
2 economies: 1% vs 99%
Hey idiot, we did have an almost purely private economy back in the 1920s; look at history, the result of that was Greatly Depressing, and it took public government spending to fix it.
Two economies, one cup.
And a whole lotta shit.
I have a dilemma. I learned that people insisting on the Truth are anti-patriots; now I also know that people who act morally eat their young and stuff. This makes me think, "Goodness, I've been LIED to about these words!"
But doesn't that then make me a conspiracy theorist? Which is what's worrisome, because the third thing I've learned is that people who actually believe two or more people EVER plan to engage in harmful activity is a freakin' nutjob. Advice please, should I commit myself while I still can?
TWO ECONOMIES ENTER ONE ECONOMEY LEAVES!!! TWO ECONOMIES ENTER ONE ECONOMEY LEAVES!!! TWO ECONOMIES ENTER ONE ECONOMEY LEAVES!!! TWO ECONOMIES ENTER ONE ECONOMEY LEAVES!!!
SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!
SEMPRINI!
Sorry…I panicked…
Burma!
BUST A DEAL, FACE THE WHEEL!
MASTER BLASTER!
Yeah, I actually read this in the print edition today (it's a gift subscription) and had a good chuckle while I parsed it: "The godless communistics of Medicare and such, created by Lyndon Johnson and Satan are holding back the Ayn Randian saviors of Ekko-NoMics Plus, which will only kill you if you haven't been lucky enough to have been born privileged or achieved it through serious ass-kissing and boot-licking. And by the way my hooves need a new coat of excrement. Hop to it."
C-O-N-S-E-R-V-A-T-I-V-E-S Go Into The Economy To Rupture Intestines.
GO MH!!! GO!!!
They certainly make my intestines ill. Among other things.
Hearing an economist lecture about morals gives me the shivers — almost as much as hearing a religious figure do the same.
Yeah, well, I don't want every place I buy things at to be like the DMV either.
Been to the DMV lately? Fast, efficient, and friendly. Now, call your cable company.
Or your health care insurer–if you are lucky enough to have health care coverage that is…
Shouldn't this guy be in jail for phone hacking?
Terrific. Next he's going to tell us his father was a mill worker.
Rolling steel for the Navy and the Golden Gate, of course.
There was one big event [after the erosion of private sector unions] that convinced Democrats that their public economy was equal to or better than the private economy… Lyndon Johnson passed the building blocks of the Great Society, notably Medicare and Medicaid
Um, the erosion of private sector unions happened *after* the Great Society, not before. These fuckers can't even get basic history right, much less economics…
LOL I love how this column is based in horrible history that doesn't even acknowledge the Military Industrial Complex, but blames the Great Society. Why skip it? Democrats started that too.
Let's start by privatizing the military and see how that works. I know we employ hundreds of thousands of contractors, private military forces, and so on but let's really just turn the Pentagon and the Defense Department into a business. If it makes a profit it can expand or pay a dividend. If it doesn't then it's not sustainable and deserves to go bankrupt.
More class war. Instead of an economy with a public sector and a private sector (among other things) with debate over who does what better, the Wall Street Urinal sees a fight to the death between the sectors of the economy.
Every president from Daddy Thousand Points of Light to Barry "Office Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership" Soetoro has labored under some level of delusion that the "nurturers of useful virtue" were going to step in and pick up the slack created by government's jettisoning of social programs … without regard to race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
Hardyharhar. These nurturers are much more likely to be funding Jesus Camps, providing seed money for Marriott to build hotels for the Olympics, or finding people like One L and Marcus to stop-gap-parent the Children of Meth. Even Catholics, who claim to embrace the poor from Anacostia to Africa, will only drop a farthing on those who reject homosexuality, family planning, divorce, and overlook the Pope's Prada. Faith-based initiatives merely allow the "faiths" to take a dip of the gubmint cash before distributing it unjustly. What a delivery system!
The plan ain't workin'. Even governments cannot distribute "charity" without prejudice, but the Feds do a better job than the states or "initiatives" ever could. Until the public finally gets the message that the handouts laid on this tool's "private economy" dwarf any charity offered to U.S. citizens by the "public economy," we will, indeed, have two economies and Gawd help you if you're in the wrong one.
More powerful arguments devoid of facts to be parroted tomorrow by those stalwarts of intellectual consistency on AM radio. And yet somehow, despite the intellectual superiority of their ideas, isn't it odd the conservatives chief spokespeople, occupying the pinnacle of early 20th century technology, are a bunch of college drop outs?
So, if I'm to understand Mr. Henninger and his Wall Street colleagues correctly, what they're actually saying is:
"Look, will you all just SHUT UP and give us all your Social Security money so we can gamble and lose with that, too?"
Now that Mitt (and Rupert) have figured out how the economy of Kobol works, it might be time for them to go run the place.
If we put aside for a moment the big red nose, the bicycle horn and seltzer bottle, the question remains, how do they get so many of you in such a little car?
What's the difference between the Public Economy and the Private Economy?
One word: "Profit".
Private Economy = Public Economy + Profit.
Take away the profit, and we just have the Public Economy, boo hoo hoo.
Yeah, Obamacare is a disaster for the private insurance industry, what with giving it a whole lot more money than it was receiving before.
isn't that "private" economy socking away trillions in undeclared assets in hidden accounts all over the world, just askin'??
I learned a long time ago that an Economist's predictions and opinions depend mostly on one thing: where his fucking paycheck is coming from. This assclown obviously is an unpaid volunteer.
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