If Rojas' is correct that we should be concerned about government intervention in the economy insofar as it results in clientelism, how would we know whether or not we are becoming more or less clientelistic? What concrete ways do we have for measuring this sort of thing?

I loved the new AIG CEO complaining about doing the government a favor. He should have told them to go F themselves. Serves him right for being a government stooge.

I feel little sympathy for any bad things that happen to government employees.

Barack Obama is not Randall Cunningham. And for Christ's sake, the recession is more complicated than a cornerback blitz. Rojas, and others who do this, just feed into the idea that the government can survey the situation, gain an omniscient awareness of what's happening, and then rationally choose the correct course of action.

I think Radley Balko had a piece in reason on the exploding incomes around D.C.

Here’s a cruise I would enjoy
The pythons of the Everglades. Sheesh.
Sounds like a fine new Chaplin bio
What is it about American self-hatred? (I don’t know – I don’t have any of it.)
NY State once again attempts to drive people and business…

Too bad, another fine mind ruined by insanity.

“But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests—financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.”

Is he right? Is America all ready governed by an oligarchy. Are we already a fascist, corporatist state?

You all are worried about Obama, yet the coup may have already occurred.

Where were you all anyway?

If you don't like it, take it up with the guy who invented what we humans refer to as “language”.

One thing I like about Bryan Caplan's book is an interpretation which he will probably hate. The truly decisive actors are people directly in the political process. Maybe the “libertarians” who are or have been in politics are not just “sell outs.” Rather they are implementing the net-liberty-enhancing policies that a real libertarian would favor if he or she were truly a decisive agent.</blocquote>

Scare tactics, or vigilence? Have you ever seen a government bureau declare its mission accomplished and disband? Me neither, and somehow I doubt that the new Directorate of Recovery for Auto Communities will be the first.