Friday, August 10, 2012

Panic Friday

Oh no!  President Obama is up by over four points in the Friday morning RCP Average, by 48.4% to 44.0%.  Mitt's losing!

That seems to be the panicked reaction of the right-wing commentariat today, from here and here and here.  And of course it could be true.

Here's a awful possibility.  Perhaps when President Obama said "you didn't build that" the American people agreed with him.  Perhaps when Joe Soptic complained about Mitt Romney not caring about his cancer-riddled wife, the president reached the forelock-touching peasant in all of us, who just wants to vote for a president that "cares about people like me."

If that is so, then Mitt Romney's goose is cooked, and so is the goose of the American people.  Because we are entering the end-game of the liberal welfare state, and there is no more money.

If the game is up, you would still expect a lot of people to vote for a man who promises to make the rich pay a little more so that they can continue to receive their entitlement benefits.  The French people just voted decisively for that, and we will see what will result.  On my view, increased taxes to pay for more entitlements is just more looting, the basis of the liberal entitlement state.  When you keep the looting down to a dull roar, you can have a prosperous society.  But when you crank it up, it just hastens the day of collapse: sovereign debt default, inflation, and asset seizure.

It is still understandable that most people would like to put off the evil day when the entitlements run out, government employees get laid off, grannie goes over a cliff, and the underclass goes back to work.

But if the American people want a path out of the liberal death spiral, then they have a candidate in Mitt Romney who, by temperament, experience, and principle, will give it to them.

We humans live by hope.  That's why when Pandora opened her box, and all the evil in the world flew out, there was still Hope left behind.  But the truth about life is that everything doesn't get kissed all better and tucked in by bedtime.  The human story is a story of great achievement--and also great disasters.  Sometimes the only way forward is through the searing heat of the furnace crucible where everything gets melted down and only then recast.

Look at China.  Dynasty after dynasty has started out young and vigorous and ended up unable to pay its bills and field a decent army when the latest version of the Mongols swarms over the border.  Why?  Because the state revenue ends up getting pissed away on special interests and regime supporters rather than vital services.

Today our American experiment is in peril because the regime has promised unsustainable entitlements to millions of people.  In consequence vital services are going unfunded, the financial system is getting wrecked, and resources are getting sucked away from growth and investment into pension payments to regime supporters.

Stein's Law applies.  If a thing cannot go on forever, it will stop.  The Fram oil-filter guy is still right.  You can pay me now, or pay me later.

And people will still panic on Friday.

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