Canada: The Northernmost State

About a month ago I penned a little rant about "independent voters," arguing as I always do that "independent" is just a functional euphemism for "low-information" (i.e., "bog stupid"). The cause of that rant was a poll asking Mississippi voters for whom they would vote today if they had the choice: Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis? Lincoln was the clear winner among both Democrats and Republicans, but self-identified "Independents" were split evenly at 44% each.

I suggested that this was only further evidence that people who self-identify as "independent" are really just so damned ignorant that they don't even know who either Lincoln or Davis were. In an attempt to bolster my claim that there are Americans alive today who don't know who Abraham Lincoln was, I pointed out that "[t]hese are people who think Canada is the northernmost state."

Well . . . lest anybody think I exaggerate the depth of ignorance that exists in the simple American electorate, let's just take a gander at how the Iowa Republican caucuses are wrapping up. Here is Texas Governor Rick Perry explaining to Iowans why we should be eager to get our hands on Canada's tar sands oil:

"Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil that we don't have to buy from a foreign source," Mr. Perry said in Clarinda, earning a round of enthusiastic applause.

Later, the audience reacted again to Mr. Perry's assertion that buying so much energy from foreign countries is "not good policy, it's not good politics and frankly it's un-American." (emphasis added)

And you thought I was exaggerating last month about how bog stupid Americans can be? What cracks me up about all this is not just that Perry just naturally considers Canada's oil to be part of the United States' domestic production, but that when he made these ridiculous statements his Republican audience burst into "enthusiastic applause." Apparently, the sheer ridiculousness of claiming Canada's oil as our own escaped them all.

Lord, Lord . . . give me the strength tomorrow night to drink enough to expunge all of 2011 from my head, and to steel me to endure the year to come.

Of Lubricants and Epiphytes

Over at Digby’s, in a post titled Killing Credibility, David Atkins writes:

In the absence of any sort of political and economic reporting that actually makes sense, voters are left to trust pre-defined political narratives. . .  [T]he biggest problem with the narratives on both sides is that economics is treated as a religion in which hidden priests serving as economic doctors must be placated by appropriate policies to “gain confidence” and “heal the economy.”  There is a massive air of mystery and clandestine actors at whose mercy sovereign nations tremble.

Reality is far simpler:  the economy is like an engine.  Demand fuels it.  A strong middle class is the best way to ensure that the fuel level stays high.  Credit via lending is a lubricant, sort of like motor oil.  In exchange for providing the lubricant, financiers are allowed to skim off the top and make out like bandits even in times of relative equality.  Lately, however, the financiers have been playing radical games to suck economy-killing amounts out of the tank, while the economy sputters to a stop due to lack of demand.  In this situation, it would seem that government would be best suited to shunt the vampire financiers off to the side, provide a fuel injection of demand and oil up the engine itself on behalf of the people.  The only problem is that the vampire financiers have too tight a control on government policy through corruption, and aren’t about to be pushed aside. (emphasis added)

I’ve long described the relationship of the financial industry to the actual economy using the same metaphor:  the financial industry helps the engine of the economy run smoothly (by allocating surplus capital to where it is needed) but it isn’t the engine itself.  It is more like what Atkins describes – motor oil.