Economy Great, Americans Are Miserable

What’s wrong with the Yanks, asks British commentator
Gerard Baker?
The economy is great, and basically has been for twenty years ever since the Reagan years,
with a couple of shallow recessions just to keep things ship-shape. Yet

only 4 per cent of the public rate the economy to be in excellent
condition; a further 37 per cent describe it as good. But 59 per cent say it’s
either not good or poor. This incongruous misery is reflected in a broader national
funk. Only 32 per cent of Americans think the country is on the right track;
54 per cent say it’s headed in the wrong direction.

Now why would the American people think that everything stinks? It could be
that their appreciation of the economy always lags its actual performance. They tend
to think the economy is in a recession for years after robust economic growth resumes. They only get
really optimistic just before a fall.

It couldn’t be, could
it, that a sector of the political class are engaged, as they were in the 1980s, in
systematically talking down the economy and the nation? Whereas in the 1990s they
were regularly fainting in the aisles with wonder at the genius of the Clinton economy?
No. That could not happen in a country blessed with an objective, professional corps of
news journalists and with a patriotic and loyal Democratic opposition.

At any rate, the objective facts are that the economy of the United States is the
envy of the world. We supply-side fanatics think we have an explanation for this.
Tax rate cuts. During the administration of the “amiable dunce” Ronald Reagan and the
mentally challenged George W. Bush Congress enacted, upon the strong recommendation of
the executive branch, significant tax rate cuts. (Note to you liberals: tax rate
cuts. There’s a secret in there if you have the intelligence to figure it out.)

Yes. Just like Calvin Coolidge and Jack Kennedy, Reagan and Bush implemented significant tax rate cuts. In the “narrative”
of capitalist economics, tax rate cuts are said to lead to significant increases in
sustained economic output.

Not that that means anything. Oh no. It’s just a narrative, after all,
and there is no reason why any one narrative should be privileged above other narratives.

New Biggies Help Self-employed

Everybody knows that the e-businesses like Amazon.com and eBay are revolutionizing
the economy. Or something like that. But under the radar they are revolutionizing
business in ways you wouldn’t expect, according to
Glenn Harlan Reynolds.

eBay is offering health insurance
“to their `Power Sellers’-- basically people who sell
$1,000 or more a month and get good customer reviews.” So not only does eBay provide
a marketplace for millions of buyers and sellers, but it also is facilitating their
transactions with services that we traditionally expect from top tier employers.

You can do things now, as a little guy, that formerly
could only be done with a big organization. But what’s interesting is
the symbiosis here. The little guys can do as well as they do because
of the big organizations, like eBay or Amazon,
that they associate with, not in spite of them.

Our liberal elites have been so busy defending Bill Clinton and hating George W. Bush
that they are completely missing the revolution in the workplace that millions
of Americans are experiencing.

There has been a quiet revolution in business technology
over the last generation, in which business skills that used to be considered an
“art” have become paint-by-numbers technology. What used to be called “a good
bedside manner” in client relations is now called “managing client expectations.”
There are lots of similar little changes in business practice
that have been systematized and refined over the last
generation and most of it has happened under the radar. The symbiosis between big
business and the little guy reported by Reynolds is just one example of this trend.

No doubt our liberal masters will wake up one day and demand to change it all, like they
did a century ago when they woke up to the horror of jumped-up barrow boys
like telegraph clerk Carnegie
and bookkeeper Rockefeller running mega-corporations.

A century ago they cut the upstarts down to size with anti-trust law
and economic regulation. Will they do something
similar this time around? Or will it be too late?

What's the Big Deal About Stem Cells?

Ever since Ron Reagan Jr. appealingly promised at the Democratic National Convention in 2004
that embryonic stem cell research would yield miracles, the question has lingered.
Just what is going on in the politics of stem cell research? Is it just the
Democrats creating a wedge issue, dividing pro-life Republicans from the practical
majority of Americans who would reflexively support research on “new hope” for
Alzheimers, cancer, AIDS sufferers?

The conservative line, rehearsed here by Michael Fumento,
is that embryonic stem cell research hasn’t produced anything whereas adult
stem cell research has already produced promising cures. Therefore we can afford not
to tread in the questionable area of “harvesting” embryos. Democrats clearly want
to sell the idea that anyone who isn’t in favor of stem cell research is anti-science.

Behind the posturing is the maneuvering of the research interests who
see a chance for a lot of government research funding. And now Senator Frist has
come out in favor of embryonic stem cell research funding.

But the question still lingers. What is really going on under the blankets?

China Converts to Christianity

It’s not a story that leads in The New York Times. It’s not an issue that you’d expect to furrow the brow of Katie Couric on NBC’s Today Show. But China is converting to Christianity. How much? How fast? According to Richard Spencer

State-sanctioned Protestant and Catholic churches in China count up to 35 million followers, making Christianity the third most practiced religion in the country after Buddhism and Taoism. Islam ranks fourth.

Even more significant is a steadily growing network of underground or “house” churches, which are said to have up to 100 million members.

That is considerably higher than the numbers estimated in David Aikman’s book Jesus in Beijing, published in 2003, which estimated 70 million in the “house” churches, with estimated growth at seven percent per year.

Here at Road to the Middle Class we count the worldwide explosion of Christianity as a marker. Whenever you see people making the transition from the life of the sun to the life of the clock, from the life as a fatalistic peasant to life as a purposeful citizen you will find enthusiastic Christianity: in the favelas of Latin America, in the burgeoning shanty towns of Africa, in the exploding economy of China. Read all about it in Chapter 15: The Worldwide Explosion of Pentecostalism.

Life must have a purpose, especially life in the self-governing global world market, whatever the liberals say.

Moderate Democrats Put Party over Principle

Five years ago a group of moderate Democrats signed onto a declaration of principle
on Social Security at FDR’s old Hyde Park mansion. They said, according to
Michael G. Franc

“We believe in shifting the focus of America’s ... social insurance
programs from transferring wealth to creating wealth.” President Bush couldn’t
have said it better. That’s exactly why he and his allies in Congress have
proposed adding personal retirement accounts to the Social Security system: so workers
can get a better return on their retirement tax dollars.

You can see the full text of the Hyde Park Declaration
here.

So where do Evan Bayh, John Kerry, Mary Landrieu, Joseph Lieberman, and Blanche Lincoln stand
on President Bush’s propsoal to reform Social Security? They have joined the extremist
liberal Democrats who have declared themselves utterly opposed to the President’s program.

No doubt in 2000 they thought they were getting on board with soon-to-be-elected President Gore’s
program. That would be different wouldn’t it.

Of course you can understand why Democrats would be nervous about privatizing Social Security.
If the average American senior got her monthly check from Fidelity rather than from
the U.S. Treasury, why would she vote for a Democrat?

The Power of Ideas against Terror

It was 58 years ago that Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against Iran’s greatest
living writer, Ahmad Kasravi. Six months later, Kasravi was dead. Writes
Amir Taheri:

At the time of his murder Kasravi was one of Iran’s leading intellectuals.
A veritable Renaissance man, he was a senior jurist at the high court, a distinguished historian,
a magnetic orator, a master of the Persian prose, and a best-selling author.

So why did Khomeini arrange his murder? Was it because Kasravi was a critic of Shi’ism? Was it
because Khomeini’s book had been published to yawns while “publication of any of
Kasravi’s book[s] was a national event with reverberations throughout society?”

Thirty years later, Khomeini’s thugs were digging up Kasravi’s grave and burning his books, and
Khomeini was executing his enemies by the thousands. But today “Kasravi is re-emerging as one of Iran’s best-loved and most read authors,”
while Khomeini’s unreadable work remains unread.

Today, we know, Iran is a nation in a pre-revolutionary situation, its people seething with rage
and despair while the world turns its gaze away. And Iranian writers like Amir Taheri burn with
a hope that the dreadful night of Iranian darkness will clear away and reveal a new dawn of hope. They
hope that: “Terrorism is, in fact, the tool of the intellectually lazy politicians.”

They hope that

A thousand years from now Kasravi will still be remembered as a great Iranian writer
and thinker while Khomeini would have become a footnote in history

And we can hope with them.

Judge Obstruction: Now They Tell Us

Now they tell us. The Democratic tactic of obstructing judges is hurting them at the polls.
Manuel Miranda
reports that Republican pollsters observed the effect back in 2002.
In the 2002 mid-term elections

In three states, Missouri, Minnesota, and Georgia, single-issue, pro-life voters
came out to vote in unusually large numbers in a mid-term election. Their margin was, in fact,
larger than the Republican margin of victory in all three states.

In an election framed around national security and lower taxes, only one issue moved these
marginal voters to the polls: judges.

In Texas, John Conrnyn was on the ropes and out of money until he focused his campaign on Democratic
obstruction of the Appeals Court nomination of State Justice Patricia Owen.

In Colorado, Wayne Allard increased his Hispanic vote by 20 percent and won election in a squeaker
by campaigning against Democratic obstruction of Miguel Estrada for an Appeals Court seat.

It feels like it is Dirty Harry time on the Judge Roberts nomination. Go ahead. Make My Day.