The guy is way way off about Lincoln but the rest wasn’t bad. That reporter is so out of it she can’t put together how liberty and forced extraction of wealth are related. Sad state of affairs.
Update: What didn’t make to CNN
Inspired by Liberty Forum and Dave Ridley saying that people should create their own media, I decided to write a song about Anthony Gregory. You can learn more about Anthony Gregory at his website. Here you go, lyrics follow after the break:
I have purposely stayed away from the TV today for fear I’d have to hear some of the Lincoln worship which is going on today which I’m sure is abundant.
Unfortunately CNN just had a segment on while I went to get tea about Lincoln’s economic beliefs and the panic of 1837. They had two people, neither economists (not that generally matters), speaking about the above topics. They made the connection that cheap credit through inflation leading to over consumption of land and that the money wasn’t backed by specie. They fail however to truly connect the dots. They also talked about how Lincoln was a road, railroad and canal socialist (implying it was a good thing in a Keynesian sort of way) yet ignore the fact he personally profited big when the government setup that a railroad would pass through land he had purchased prior to his time in office.
At one point the main host mentions that Lincoln was more concerned with slavery in that it undermined working poor whites rather than feeling it was morally wrong to enslave a fellow human being. Not only do they ignore the fact that slavery was economically less efficient compared to free market labor but the person being interviewed ho and hummed away Lincolns bigotry and claimed that’s where he started but ended up believing in full equality. Given Lincoln late in his life supported the Corwin Amendment, said outright he didn’t think that whites and blacks could or should live amongst each other and tried to have the ex-slaves sent to Africa… I don’t buy it.
It’s so easy to make someone out to be amazing when you ignore all that made them not.
Oh… I’m sorry. Obama is the savior now. Either way I recommend taking some time and reading up on the real Abraham Lincoln, the man we didn’t read about in grade school.
LewRockwell.com’s King Lincoln Archive
In no particular order of importance a select few.
Under fire for regulatory missteps, top U.S. securities regulator Christopher Cox defended his agency’s record but acknowledged some regrets over how he handled the worst financial crisis in decades.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has been lambasted by lawmakers and others for not doing enough to prevent the 2008 collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, interfering with markets and failing to detect the alleged $50 billion fraud at Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff’s firm.
Cox, a Republican and former California congressman, said the SEC’s focus has been customer protection and broker dealer regulation and that the agency “performed that traditional role superbly.”
However, Cox said he had some regrets over a drastic action the agency took as markets were hurtling downward in September. For a few weeks, the SEC stopped investors from making bearish bets on financial stocks like Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.
The SEC’s office of economic analysis is still evaluating data from the temporary ban on short-selling. Preliminary findings point to several unintended market consequences and side effects caused by the ban, he said.
“While the actual effects of this temporary action will not be fully understood for many more months, if not years, knowing what we know now, I believe on balance the commission would not do it again,” Cox told Reuters in a telephone interview from the SEC’s Los Angeles office late on Tuesday. “The costs appear to outweigh the benefits.”
The SEC imposed the temporary ban under intense pressure from the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department which insisted it was crucial to the short-term survival of these institutions, Cox said.
A few weeks after the temporary ban was lifted, global markets were again dropping precipitously, U.S. banks were begging the SEC to reinstate its short-sale ban and there was talk of shutting the markets down.
Cox said the chief executive of one major U.S. investment bank even urged suspension of normal trading rules across the entire U.S. market, likening the situation to how Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War Two.
The chief executive said, “that is how America made it through such crises, and we couldn’t be too focused on maintaining the rule of law,” Cox said. “That was advice we rejected.”
Wonderful. Comparing his their actions to that of outright tyrants. In one respect I agree. What was done was but a difference of degrees and not kind. But the level of degrees is so great it’s a bit of an insult to those who suffered as a result of Lincoln’s and FDR’s actions.
This was completely predicted by anyone with half an economic brain. The ban was obviously pushed for by John Mack of Morgan Stanley, Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs along with other major bank players. No net good can occur due to government interference. Only relative to the bad they caused prior.
This comes from this weeks USNews in a Q&A with George McGovern:
Why do you consider Obama another Lincoln?
I think he is a healing figure and yet hasn’t surrendered his convictions. I think he is very careful not to come across as a radical. He tries to appeal to common sense, and he is willing to make compromises. I also think that both Lincoln and Barack have a deep and abiding faith in our founding ideals.
It’s clear in your book that you admire Lincoln not just for his speeches but for his ability to play political hardball. Do you see that in Obama?
Yes, I do. I think he had the best organized, most brilliantly conceived presidential campaign we may ever have had. If I do say it, mine was in that same category. I don’t think we made a mistake in the year and a half leading up to winning that nomination. After that, we ran into all kinds of difficulty.What do you make of Obama’s “team of rivals”‘ approach to creating his cabinet?
I think it’s wise. Franklin Roosevelt did that, too. His secretary of war and his secretary of the Navy in World War II were both Republicans. George Washington kept both Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his cabinet. Lincoln didn’t invent the team of rivals, but he probably did it as well as any president we’ve had.Antiwar liberals haven’t had much success running for president since you lost in 1972. Does the election of Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, feel like vindication?
Yes, people who opposed these unnecessary wars do feel somewhat vindicated. Of course, I opposed the Iraq war, too. I was on television two or three times warning against it. I’ve seen one poll as high as 80 percent of Americans think we made a mistake going into Iraq. I suppose we’d get similar poll results on whether Vietnam was a sound policy.Do you believe Obama will keep his campaign promise to pull American troops out of Iraq ?
Bush thinks it’s a big concession that we’ll have them out by 2012. I don’t think any president can keep those troops in there until 2012. Obama has said we’ve got to get out of Iraq, but the real problem is Afghanistan. Well, you go from Iraq into Afghanistan, you’re moving from the frying pan into the fire.
Does he really believe Obama is antiwar? Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel were the only antiwar candidates. Obama has shown no desire to stop the MIC, end the occupation of Iraq and Afganistatian or bring home troops stationed in the over 130 countries around the world. And then to compare him Lincoln? Lincoln was in charge of the war which killed what would now be over 6 million. The largest percentage of any war the US has engadged in. That’s hardly peaceful or antiwar.
At least McGovern isn’t so starry eyed to act as if Obama’s supposed “team of rivals” is unique. As if any two individuals in Obama’s cabinet are as ideologically different as Hamilton and Jefferson were.
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