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For years West Virginia rightwingers would tout Ireland's economic success as a formula for West Virginia to follow.
Here's one example from 2006 from Curtis Dubay at the rightwing group The Tax Foundation:
West Virginia should aim to be to the United States what Ireland is to Europe. Ireland lagged behind the rest of Europe for years, but 10 years ago it dramatically revamped its tax code with broad bases and low rates, and after only 10 years it is known as the Celtic Tiger.
Here's another from rightwing Bow Tie Boy at the rightwing State Journal:
Some have called it the Irish Miracle, while others, in a nod to the explosive economies of the Pacific Rim, refer to Ireland as the Celtic Tiger. But whatever you call it, while the rest of Europe is groaning under low growth rates, Ireland has been purring.
The reality of course is that the unfettered, unleashed capitalism that the Irish followed and that the rightwingers wanted for West Virginia has created this:
DUBLIN - Ireland's decision to accept a rescue package worth more than $100 billion prompted a call Monday for early elections and a warning from a major ratings agency that the bailout could prove to be a "credit negative" for the country.
European Union officials, who had been pushing Ireland to accept help, quickly agreed to the request late Sunday, committing a significant amount of money to an ailing member for the second time in six months. The total amount was not announced, but several officials said it would be 80 billion to 90 billion euros, or $109 billion to $123 billion. Last spring, Europe disbursed 110 billion euros to Greece to save it from default.
snip
But the Irish government has been sinking further and further into debt since its 2008 decision to protect its banks from all losses. The banking system had become so weakened that it could not afford to wait any longer for help.
Banks, which issued loans recklessly during the real estate boom, have losses of about 70 billion euros, almost half the country's economic output. A new set of bank stress tests will be imposed, and the number of banks will be pared down, officials said.
The rightwingers are always wrong. But they never pay the price. Everyone else does either in bailing out Wall Street or in the dead from George W. Bush's war in Iraq, but not them.
West Virginian and former Republican John Cole didn't specifically mention Republican and former West Virginian Chris Stirewalt, the old wingnut columnist at the State Journal. But Cole's words are quite apt about the wingnut I dubbed, Bow Tie Boy.
...since he wore a bow tie, and using the Tucker Carlson/George Will theorem, the surest sign that someone is both an asshole and about to start spewing bullshit...
Remember Bow Tie Boy, Chris Stirewalt? OK, he's easily forgotten so you're forgiven if you don't. He was the rightwing columnist for The State Journal. I was reminded of him as I read this article because he was always pushing Ireland as an economic model for businesses.
Everything, it seems, has grown worse here. The recession started earlier and its bite has been deeper. Housing prices have fallen by as much as 50 percent. Bank shares have plummeted by more than 90 percent. Unemployment is approaching 10 percent.
The roots of Ireland's fall date to more than 20 years ago, when a clutch of economists, politicians and civil servants put their heads together in this very pub and planted the philosophical seeds for the Irish economic miracle.
Known widely as the "Doheny & Nesbitt School of Economics," these beery musings soon became government policy that chopped taxes in half, sharply reduced import duties and embraced foreign investment - a radical transformation that gave birth to the Celtic Tiger and perhaps the most open and vibrant economy in Europe.
But beyond the glow of this sudden efflorescence that made Ireland the fourth most-affluent country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a housing bubble had begun to form. Low interest rates, a wave of inward immigration and a bank lending spree drove housing's share of the economy to 14 percent, the highest in Europe, from 5 percent, according to research done by Finfacts, a financial Web site that analyzes the Irish economy.
Developers like Mr. Dunne became multimillionaires and - much like the hedge fund and private-equity elite in America - became visible public and cultural figures. They were living large in a country just coming to grips with its ability to show a little swagger.
Ireland's policy makers, like their counterparts in the United States and Britain, were seduced by record tax inflows and a full-employment economy. They paid little heed to the lonely voices that warned of the crash that finally came over the summer, when interest rates in Europe began to rise. Banks that had steered more than 60 percent of their loans toward property stopped lending, and asset values plummeted.
"We have repeatedly warned that the government's housing policy was extremely dangerous," said John Fitz Gerald, an economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute, a leading policy center in Dublin, who has long urged that the government stanch housing demand by raising taxes. "You will now see unemployment going to 10 percent and we will experience a sharp drop in output."
He shakes his head and sighs: "This was predictable, but the government just did not deal with it."
Meanwhile, West Virginia, the most "socialist" state in the nation according to our last GOP gubernatorial candidate, is seeing unemployment go up slightly, but remains at a far lower rate than our neighbors in surrounding states. I'll have more on that later. One of the things I thought this blog has done best in the past couple of years is pushing back against the WV GOP's "Unleashing Capitalism" campaign. Considering how much deregulation has helped create the global financial crisis and discredited their policies, the state GOP's next slogan should be an apology for the last one.
And as my time in West Virginia comes to a close, my only real regret is that I haven't seen a moment like that in my home state -- to be able to cheer on reform instead of bemoan stagnation.
I've been thinking a lot about that, and particularly about what a co-worker told me on his way out of town what now seems like a long time ago.
"Get out of West Virginia soon," he said. "The longer you stay, the harder it is to leave."
I had followed him out to his car, puppy-dog-style, carrying his box of family pictures and books after the last pieces of good-bye cake had been cleared away. I looked up to him as a role model, and he was leaving the state for a plum position after proving his chops in Charleston.
I had trotted after him, hoping that he would bestow some words of wisdom.
Did he ever.
His message was that the state wasn't going to change any time soon, and that he should have jumped out quickly instead of becoming entangled. He said I had potential but that it would never be fully realized here.
I shifted the box on my hip as he talked, blinking in the afternoon sun. I asked him to consider just how badly I wanted to make the most of myself, but make it here.
I wanted to know the secret.
How do I bring down the slimy legislators and lobbyists who grapple over slices of a shrinking pie? How do I arouse the passions of the electorate to the point that they refuse to accept a crooked, shoddy system? How do I make myself their champion?
I wanted a roadmap to success for conservatism in West Virginia. He gave me a roadmap to Washington, D.C.
I suppose after my little speech he probably thought differently about his previous endorsement of my potential. He gave me a pat on the shoulder, wished me luck, put his box in his little car and drove off.
Now, a half a dozen years later, I'm getting ready to pack my box and drive off.
What I learned in the interim is that it really isn't about me.
His last column comes across like most of his columns: whiny and bitter that no one listened to him. He says his columns were "love letters." I'll miss how Stirewalt's writing revealed more about his personality and the inner workings of his mind than he probably intended.
The most logical way to save the system is partial privatization, especially the plan laid out in the Ryan-Sununu Bill, which does a partial privatization that increases payouts, makes the fund solvent for the Baby Boom trough hogs and has minimal risk. It’s a great plan that won’t be implemented because Democrats in Congress will keep scare mongering the issue as an easy-to-exploit electoral issue.
I was very pleased to see this weekend that aspiring Charleston politician and liberal think tanker Ted Boettner call for a variation on the idea. Sure, he wants it to be on the state level and done in addition to Social Security, but his acceptance of the underlying idea means that we may find some common cause on the issue with the left. [Emphasis mine.]
Sure, and if you add enough qualifiers to a sentence you could find common cause with any thing. Here's Boettner's post. Notice too that it's Republicans claiming Social Security is "doomed," but it's Democrats who are the "scare mongers" in Bow Tie Boy's world view. Talk about projection!
I hope Republicans take Bow Tie Boy's advice and keep pushing for Social Security piratization because the public hates the idea.
Social Security could be brought into actuarial balance over the next 75 years in various ways, including an immediate increase of 16 percent in payroll tax revenues or an immediate reduction in benefits of 13 percent or some combination of the two.
Roughly, this would require increasing both the employee and employer share of the tax from 6.2% to 7.05% (there might be some employment/wage impacts of such a change so this is a rough take).
If Bow Tie Boy did more than just repeat rightwing talking points, it would be much easier to find common cause.
However, the American people like Social Security as it is and any "fixes" needed can wait until we have an administration that does not intend to help make Wall Street richer while leaving the rest of us holding the (empty money) bag.
"The Ryan-Sununu plan ostensibly finances its massive transfers in large part by assuming that government spending can be reduced (relative to what it would be with no policy changes), but it provides no credible mechanism for achieving the necessary reductions. The plan should thus be viewed as predicated on a massive magic asterisk, in which trillions of dollars are simply assumed to be forthcoming from the rest of the budget."
Leave it to Bow Tie Boy to push a plan that requires "magic" to work.
Type in Bow Tie Boy in teh google and our very own homages to West Virginia's Bow Tie Boy at the State Journal are No. 9 and No. 10 out of 1,220,000 sites.
Our Bow Tie Boy is just below No. 8:
For special occasions, bring out a bow tie! Designed with a metal clip-on fastener that's easy to use and an adorable allover.
I don't mean to keep picking on Bow Tie Boy of the State Journal. Honest. And I do mean the monicker for him almost as a term of affection. He does so much want to be the George Will of West Virginia that there's something almost endearing about his earnestness -- even if he doesn't quite grasp the issues as he pontificates on them. For what it is worth, he really is my favorite rightwing blogger in the state.
Now that is out of the way...you've got to read this post by Bow Tie Boy:
We're wrapping up taping of two Decision Makers in Wheeling and being here today is really kind of a strange sensation. I've stayed in pretty close contact with my hometown over the years and have always preferred it to Charleston, but in a way, for the first time, I feel kind of like a stranger here.
I was considering running by Ye Olde Alpha for a cocktail, but realized I can't think of a single person to call to meet me there. I grew up here and worked in newspapers here starting when I was 17, but I feel a strange sense of disconnection now.
It's sort of like running into a girl you always carried a torch for and having her not recognize you at first. I don't mean to sound too sentimental, but as I get a little older, I increasingly appreciate the fleetingness of time. I know and love many people here, not the least of whom are my parents, but this little town that I always thought of as my own isn't quite mine anymore.
Yes, even as I wipe away the tears of laughter as his post reaches Onionesque heights, I can't help but feel sympathy at the unintentionally too revealing details that are cringe-worthy. On the other hand, someone so lacking in self-awareness of how he comes across (you can just picture him -- or rather how he pictures himself -- as the world weary columnist back in his hometown from the big city of Charleston) that I have got to share it with the readers the way Jim and Pam exchange stories about Michael on The Office.
In the middle of the big debate on immigration, the California GOP finds out that among the jobs that Americans apparently don't want to do are the deputy director and director posts of the state party.
I love when Bow Tie Boy at the State Journal gets writing in such huffy excitement that his words run right by obvious facts and he doesn't even wave to them as he passes them by.
As I always say, 50 years from now people will look back at us beset by challenges from the Islamists, the Chinese, the Russians and from our porous borders and they will say “And they tried to change the weather.”
If you don’t think that our first priority should be to get untangled from that nest of vipers in the Middle East, you’re not thinking like an American
Looks to me from where I sit that it's Chris Stirewalt's beloved Republican Party (except for Maryland Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, a Vietnam veteran) that intends to keep the U.S. forever in Iraq.
Somehow Bow Tie Boy overlooked that the occupation of Iraq is an entanglement in the Middle East, perhaps because he hasn't enlisted to serve in the occupation there.
Or is Bow Tie Boy suddenly bucking the Republican Party and reversed his position on Iraq and eager for bringing the troops home? Nah, he's just being his usual, illogical self.
Bow Tie Boy's criticism of Big Oil also rings exceptionally hollow when he approvingly quotes his reader "Bo":
At a minimum, we are funding the munitions (military, education, etc.) of the enemy every time we fill up a Hummer.
Percentages of campaign contributions from Oil & Gas industry to Republicans:
* 2006 - 82 percent of contributions to GOP.
* 2004 - 80 percent of contributions to GOP.
* 2002 - 80 percent of contributions to GOP.
* 2000 - 78 percent of contributions to GOP.
Bow Tie Boy also thinks the danger of global warming is an issue only cared about by liberals.
Liberals love to put global warming first because it is somewhere over the horizon, is solved by government regulation and is our fault.
"We will pay for this one way or another," said retired Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni, former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind. Or, we will pay the price later in military terms. And that will involve human lives. There will be a human toll."
"The U.S. should commit to a stronger national and international role to help stabilize climate changes at levels that will avoid significant disruption to global security and stability," the Military Advisory Board recommends.
The study, "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change," explores ways in which climate change acts as a "threat multiplier" in already fragile regions of the world, creating the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.
The CNA Corporation, a nonprofit research and analysis organization, brought together 11 retired four-star and three-star admirals and generals as a Military Advisory Board to provide advice, expertise and perspective on the impact of climate change on national security. CNA writers and researchers compiled the report under the board's direction and review.
Members of the Military Advisory Board come from all branches of the armed services. The board includes a former Army chief of staff, commanders-in-chiefs of U.S. forces in global regions, a former shuttle astronaut and NASA administrator, and experts in planning, logistics, underwater operations and oceanography. One member also served as U.S. ambassador to China.
"We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world," said retired General Gordon Sullivan, chairman of the Military Advisory Board and former Army chief of staff, in releasing the report today at a Washington news conference.
The Military Advisory Board report recognizes that unabated climate change could bring an increased frequency of extreme storms, additional drought and flooding, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and the rapid spread of life-threatening disease.
These projected effects are usually viewed as environmental challenges, but now the Military Advisory Board has looked at them from the perspective of national security assessments.
They are serious risk factors for massive migrations, increased border tensions, greater demands for rescue and evacuation efforts, and conflicts over essential resources, including food and water, the board said, saying such developments could lead to direct U.S. military involvement.
"Climate change can provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror," said retired Admiral T. Joseph Lopez, former commander-in-chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe and of Allied Forces, Southern Europe.
"Rising ocean water levels, droughts, violent weather, ruined national economies-those are the kinds of stresses we'll see more of under climate change," he said.
"In the long term, we want to address the underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit," Admiral Lopez said. "But climate change will prolong those conditions. It makes them worse."
I guess a rightwing, 101st Fighting Keyboardist might know more about national security issues than those 11 retired three and four star generals and admirals...but I have my doubts. I'd bet they know a bit more about national defense than him.
Clem writes on the suspicions of many of us that the Draft Anne Barth for WV-02 race is being pushed behind the scenes by the Republican puppet master: convicted felon and former Gov. Arch Moore (father of current Rep. Shelley Moore Capito). That way he could split Democrats in WV-02 to weaken the candidate facing his daughter in '08.
Bow Tie Boy at the State Journal writes of people already lining up to succeed Sen. Robert C. Byrd should he retire soon.
After successfully drafting State Sen. John Unger to run for WV-02, I'm going to throw out this: Barth as a potential successor for Byrd should he retire before finishing his term. To me, it makes good sense. She's been Byrd's statewide coordinator. It would further diversify the U.S. Senate by adding another woman - a move that can only make Gov. Joe Manchin more popular with women voters in West Virginia.
Many who know Barth speak highly of her work for Byrd.
What will be interesting to see is whether the Republicans who have touted Barth's qualifications for Congress jump on this draft movement.
Moments ago I was just reading a column at the State Journal by rightwing political editor Bow Tie Boy on Senator Robert C. Byrd and the people lining up to replace him should he retire and I was thinking, "Hey, I'm going to have to write a positive post agreeing with Bow Tie Boy" when I came upon this paragraph:
The only period of uncertainty would be if the vacancy occurred soon, giving all interested parties the chance to queue up for the big job.
All three of our members of the House of Representatives would fancy themselves, with Shelley Moore Capito looking the most viable, being without a federal investigation or a southern accent.
Which just goes to prove: even though rightwingers can be articulate they can still write idiocy.
Put aside for a moment the fact that the investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan has gone no where and the hearings on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have shown the Justice Department has been made into a partisan tool of the Republicans to use against Democrats.
Put aside too the most important issue facing the country, the Iraq war, and that Capito remains for keeping the U.S. troops occuping Iraq in the middle of that country's civil war -- a view that puts her squarely in opposition to the vast majority of the American people and four of the five members of our Congressional caucus.
Put all of those valid arguments aside for a second and think about this.
What fantasy world does Bow Tie Boy live in that if the question ever arose that he thinks a Democratic governor in a Democratic state would replace a Democratic senator with a Republican representative?
For a political editor, Bow Tie Boy showed a remarkable naiveness. He completely discredited what otherwise was a reasonable column by him. But rightwingers can't help themselves.
Their sense of entitlement for Republicans is delusional.
Meant to post on this the other day. Bow Tie Boy at the State Journal:
We’re like the kind of good looking girl with the weird ex-boyfriend for Democrats – they’d like to get with us, but we’re probably not worth the aggravation.
Forget politics for a moment, that statement by him really exposes more of Bow Tie Boy's personality and background than I suspect he really intended.
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