Can it be stopped?

Skeptics weigh in:

Most of Washington has reached quick consensus: Government must do something big to shock the economy, and it should cost between $800 billion and $900 billion.

But dissident economists and investment professionals offer a much different take: Most of Washington is dead wrong.

Instead of fighting over what should go in the economic stimulus bill, pitting infrastructure spending against tax cuts and contractors against contraceptives, they say lawmakers should be fighting against the very idea of any economic stimulus at all. Call them the Do-Nothing Crowd.

What a mess

Did we lure people in to build houses we didn't need, then buy houses they couldn't afford?

Subprime Crisis: The media have pounded President Bush for a wave of Hispanic home foreclosures. But it was Democrats who launched a drive to loosen credit for Hispanics — many of them illegals.

Taps for global warming?

Huffington Post (thanks to Instapundit)

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

Fingers crossed

If we can't predict the economy -- then what?

As the estimable Robert Samuelson writes in the Washington Post, "The great lesson of the past year is how little we understand and can control the economy." The equally estimable Matthew D'Ancona puts it this way in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, "The Sibylline Books remain closed. The crystal ball yields no secrets....Almost nothing is certain about the next twelve months."

Counterattack

The really new media:

On December 29th, 2008, the Israeli Defense Force launched its own YouTube Channel, and within one week it was driving all the News and Politics on YouTube. This was a brilliant Public Relations move in order to circumvent the Leftist Press. More importantly, this should be a model for Conservative and Libertarian bloggers to follow.

thoughts for GOP

Notes on conservatism and Republicanism:

The Jeffersonian yeoman farmer is still a powerful archetype for conservatives. But have even they gone beyond that? Consider "The pencil" -- conservatives argue it takes thousands of people to make a pencil.

But is this close to liberalism's picture of people needing to cooperate?

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And trust busting. Was Teddy Roosevelt on to something? Must government act to keep companies from becoming too big, thus distorting the political scene, a la GM?

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Economists are still arguing about the causes of the Panic of 1837! Not to mention the Great Depression. And no one one knows what's going on now.

But maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe at a certain point in the growth it doesn't matter. Something will tip over the structure.

Now, that may not be a bad deal. Twenty-some good years, a couple of bad ones.

But can GOP sell that to voters?

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And is the real Reagan the hard money guy? Were tax cuts almost a diversion, like blockers sweeping left, while quarterback runs right?

Ammo for GOP?

Via Instapundit: Republicans need a message. Why not this?

Lawrence Lindsay writes that tax cuts rather than government spending will have a more immediate and long-lasting impact on the economy:

The relative advantage of tax cuts over spending is even clearer when the recession is centered on the household balance sheet. Some relatively minor changes, like making the current 15 percent tax rate on dividends and capital gains permanent, would not only help household cash flow, but also put a floor under equity prices much as their introduction did in 2003. This would help protect against further wealth destruction and balance sheet deterioration.

[T]he centerpiece of any tax cut should be employment taxes: in particular, a permanent halving of the current 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax on the first $106,800 of wages, split evenly between workers and employers.