Re: Interesting sentences
 

Read his recent views on China, the country which ran the mother of all stimuli. He criticizes the fact that so much cheap money sloshing around the country has gone into a real estate bubble that looks exactly like ours of 2002-2006.

Re: Interesting sentences
 

A bubble isn't a debt crisis.

The US would need a whole lot of stimulus to approach bubble territory.

Re: Islands in the stream
 

1. He's dead right.

2. Was there ever disagreement on that? More tax cuts for the rich will deliver nothing in terms of job growth. The problem is, enhancing taxes on the rich does have a negative impact. How? Because out of necessity, when taxes are increased on the "rich," the target gets defined down to people like doctors and lawyers, and upper middle managers (there aren't enough truly rich people to tax to make a difference, and many of the truly rich can avoid tax increases anyway). Tax a doctor or lawyer an extra seven or eight grand a year, and his business a few thousand, and he'll think twice about hiring anyone, or giving much in terms of raises. That's an unfixable reality.

3. No. Laying off govt workers sensibly (getting rid of patronage hires and truly useless workers, as opposed to percentage based across the board reductions) can reduce taxes for strapped consumers, who will then spend the money. The govt worker also comes with pension costs, lifetime benefits, etc. The private sector worker does not.

4. On #2, because the GOP has done a brilliant job of selling the lie that tax cuts somehow magically increase employment, even in an economy where lack of demand from the middle class is the primary ailment. It is quite amazing. Regarding #3, the Shrink the Govt advocates don't want to argue about streamlining govt. That involves thought, which alienates most voters. They want to speak in easy absolutes, which voters like.

Re: Islands in the stream
 

Most private companies don't know how to lay people off sensibly -- at least from the examples I've seen** -- and the government is worse about it.


**The fallback strategy in the private sector appears to be laying off X% of every department without stopping to determine whether any departments have been hiring like crazy in the past years and have lots of fat to cut while others haven't hired anyone in years and are run very leanly.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

He spent a lot of time on war - I think the only things I read by him in the last 10 years of his life were either cheering on the war or denigrating people who opoosed it. Yeah, he also wrote on stupid glitzy crap for vanity fair. I don't think I've ever made it to the second paragraph there.

Said was one of those guys who has just as colorful a way with words as Hitchens, but was oh so careful about what he said. I always admired his care in speaking - slow, but beautiful and accurate. There was a guy worth eulogizing.

Re: Islands in the stream
 

I am curious to see how the Democrats blow the chance to make hay out of the pending Tea Party Tax on Jan. 1.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

Beautiful, I'm with you. Careful's dull. If I want that, I'll spend extra time with business acquaintances, where people are required by economic considerations to avoid insult or sharp criticism. I think it was an Amis who said, "If you can't offend, why write?" I loved Hitchens because he wrote with balls. Said will never be discussed in the same book, let alone paragraph, with someone like Mencken or Twain. Hitchens has been there for years.

He also wrote on religion (just a tad). You might be familiar with that, seeing as it occupied 50-70% of his work since 2006. And the VF articles were not on glitzy shit. VF often has a glitzy person on the cover, utilized to attract a broad audience. If this kept you from opening the magazine, I'm sorry. You've missed some of the best in-depth reporting on politics, culture, and economics of the past twenty years.

Re: Islands in the stream
 

They'll let the debate shift to the Keystone Pipeline issue. The GOP will paint them as whacked environmentalists precluding cheap energy imports.

But really, there isn't much hay there. The GOP has to cave on the payroll tax. They'd get killed if the holiday were curtailed.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

You do know much of his writing on religion advocating bombing the fidels because they were responsible for so much suffering in the world?

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

How can you possibly care so much about whether a drunken, colorful polemicist is respected in his death or not?

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

True, but a great thing about drunken colorful polemicists is that they do their own causes no favors. Waxing poetic on clusterbombs piercing korans was wonderful. He's like a fast-talking Sarah Pallin. I would much rather talk Hitchins than Frum.

Ever notice whether Hitchins gets quoted more by those who agree with him or disagree with him?

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

The moth has a podcast of him from from 1999 on its webpage. Drunk rambling.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

God is Not Great did not, as I recall, advocate violence, but rather explained why religion causes so much violence. Yes, Hitchens did go in for a bit more Islamophobia than was warranted at times. But he experienced firsthand what Islamic nuts were capabale of doing. Rushdie, one of his best friends, had to live under armed guard for a decade because he wrote a book. I'll give the man a pass for a bit of extremism in his approach to Islam. I will not give you a pass on attempting, badly, to suggest more than a slim percentage of his work raised such views.

"Much" is a wiggle word. I know this because I frequently employ it. In the context of discussing a writer so prolific, what appears significant in terms of word count, or pages, to someone who admits he's refused to read anything but the author's war articles, is all but assuredly not. It's also amusing you'd even get into this dispute, considering your admission at the outset - that you're not well read on the subject. I don't know Said's catalog well. If I told you that, and then went on to tell you how much of his writing was this, that, or something else, you'd be right to tell me I had my head up my ass. As I'm doing here.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

Yeah, I haven't read much of his religion stuff; I read him fairly regularly back in the 80s, when he agreed with me on enough so I was often upset with him for the half-assed way he screwed things up. Over the last decade, what I know of him are the wonderful quotes that grace any good discussion of Islamaphobia or mysogyny and the stuff linked to them. Of course, he does not get quoted on a substantive discussion of Islam or women, only on the discussions of strange views toward them. But we aren't engaged in a substantive discussion of him, are we? I just threw out his clusterbomb quote when you gave me an opening and have been bullshitting with you about the ass since.

Yes, no doubt amusing; let us each find amusement where we may. One of my pet amusements is when someone suggests "firsthand" experience comes from knowing someone somewhere - such a "one of my best friends is black" basis for expertise! Did you really just go there with Hitchens and Rushdie? Such suffering! Yeah, clusterbomb them. And "a bit more" islamophobia? Yeah, right, sure.

As to reading his book, god, no thank you.

Re: Death to Fidels Everywhere!
 

If you try to slay the reader with every sentence, you will undoubtedly succeed. - Buckley (date unknown, probably horribly paraphrased, but you get the point)

That may be true, but I've wandered into stale farts more compelling than anything Frum has authored. And it isn't just his writing. He's a David Brooksian castrated centrist of the first order, but unlike Brooks, who tries to bridge the gap between left and right, all Frum can do is play the part of apologist and scold. Nobody likes a whimpering turncoat. If you're going to be traitor, do it with no regret.