Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

‘Quantitative Easing’ and Inflation

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The United States Federal Reserve announced on Thursday that it is embarking on a third round of ‘quantitative easing,’ buying up forty billion dollars of securities each month in an effort to boost the economy. ‘Quantitative easing’ is the preferred Fed euphemism for printing money and ‘injecting’ it into the American economic system. These buys will continue until the “outlook for the labor market . . . [improves] substantially,” and will be increased if necessary. Some analysts expect that the Fed may end up adding a whopping $1.7 trillion to its balance sheet over the next several years as part of QE3, in addition to the $1.75 trillion it added in QE1 and the 600 billion dollars in QE2.

So what is the purpose of these QE money-printing schemes? Well, the idea is that by making more money available to banks for loans, that will then make it easier for companies to expand and grow. This ‘easy money’ will hopefully allow businesses to increase their hiring, which will reduce the unemployment rate—the end goal. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that QE1 and QE2 contributed to restoration of market confidence and reduced systemic economic risks, but former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan calculates that they had virtually no impact whatsoever. Whoever is right, unemployment remains well above eight percent. The Fed is clearly dissatisfied with the results of its QE programs, or else it wouldn’t need to try a third round. Of course, I tend to think that when a policy fails you ought to try a different policy, rather than doubling-down on the one that didn’t work.

When more money is put in circulation, it tends to reduce the value of that currency—in other words, it causes inflation. Inflation has been hovering in the five-to-ten percent range since 2008, meaning that each year the cost of living is getting significantly higher. The Fed and other government agencies have reduced the impact of this inflation by lying about it; according to the official cost of living values, inflation is at record lows below two percent. Federal agencies and most companies index their cost of living wage increases against these official numbers, which are achieved by arbitrarily excluding food and fuel costs (among others) from the calculations. So, although actual cost of living is increasing, wages have stayed-put. This has allowed companies to avoid broad layoffs and, more importantly, to keep their prices from skyrocketing . . . but it has also meant that most workers in the United States have taken a hidden pay cut, and their savings aren’t worth what they should be.

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U.S. Ambassador Killed in Libya

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J. Christoper Stevens, the United States Ambassador to Libya, has been killed in a rocket attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Three other consulate officials were also killed. Angry protests have occurred over the last two days at the U.S. missions in Libya and Egypt, supposedly due to the content of an online film called Innocence of Muslims that is said to be offensive to Islam.

During the attack in Cairo, Egypt, men scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy, tore down the American flag, and raised a black flag with the white Arabic text of the Islamic Kalma prayer, which can be translated into English as, ‘There is no God but Allah, and the Prophet Mohammed is his messenger.’ The Benghazi attack left our mission there in shambles; attackers stormed the consulate then looted and burned it, leaving the bodies of the four murdered American officials in the street outside.

These attacks have been strongly condemned by President Barack Obama (D) and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D). However, Clinton has been criticized by former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA)—the Republican presidential nominee—for saying in her initial statement regarding the Cairo attacks that, ‘The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.’ Romney said that, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged [them].”

In an official statement released via Libya’s official news agency, the governing party condemned the attacks and promised to “track down the perpetrators and to maintain the country’s security and the safety and security of its guests.” A spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry also said that, “This is an expression of a feeling that is thought to be an insult, but events like this are extremely deplorable. And we have to work to get things under control.”

Under long-standing international laws governing diplomatic relations, embassies and consulates are considered to be extraterritorial, and may not be entered without the permission of the guest nation. As such, these attacks should be considered a direct assault on U.S. citizens in U.S. territory. The host nations—Egypt and Libya, in this case—have a duty to protect the territorial integrity and safety of all foreign diplomatic missions in their countries.

Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador to be killed by violence in the line of duty since 1979, and only the sixth in all of U.S. history.

Democratic Party Officially Nominates Obama

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Barack Obama (official portrait)

The delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, have officially nominated President Barack Obama (D) to stand for reelection as the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States. He will face-off in the November general election against the Republican nominee, former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA).

Obama has been the presumptive Democratic nominee since securing a majority of pledged party convention delegates in April, running essentially uncontested. Today’s convention vote makes that nomination official. Obama is joined on the Democratic ticket by his running-mate, incumbent Vice President Joe Biden (D).

Buoyed by the highest voter turnout rate since 1968, especially among young and minority voters, Obama secured the presidency in 2008 with an impressive 365-173 electoral landslide. Previously he had served two terms in the Illinois state senate, followed by a single partial term in the United States Senate.

Obama, the son of a white, American mother and a black, African father, is America’s first mixed-race president (though he is often erroneously identified as our first black or African-American president). His ascendance to high office only a few short decades after racial integration represents an important cultural triumph over bigotry. Biden is also noteworthy for being the first Catholic vice president.

Today’s Democratic nominations officially complete the major-party tickets for the November general election. The Republican Party formally nominated Romney and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI 1st) as their party’s presidential ticket at last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

Reclaiming Liberalism

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The United States was founded as, and should remain, a liberal country. You might be surprised to hear that, considering that a 2011 poll found that forty percent of Americans consider themselves conservative, thirty-five percent identify as moderate, and only twenty-one percent consider themselves liberal (Gallup). You might also be surprised to hear this from me, since I constantly make the case for limited government, religious liberty, Second Amendment rights, and other ‘conservative’ causes by quoting from our nations’ founders and a ‘strict constructionist’ read of the U.S. Constitution. Your surprise is understandable. What we have here is a classic case of misappropriating terms.

You see, when we hear the word ‘liberal’ today, we think of leaders like Presidents John F. Kennedy (D), Jimmy Carter (D), Bill Clinton (D), and Barack Obama (D). The word has gotten bound-up with the political doctrine known as progressivism, which rose to prominence under President Theodore Roosevelt—a Republican—but later came to be the driving force behind the Democratic Party. The American brand of progressivism began with government reforms and trust-busting efforts at the turn of the twentieth century that greatly increased the powers and authorities of the federal government. The movement supported laudable policies like child labor laws, the move toward women’s suffrage, set-asides of land for conservation purposes (i.e., the national parks), and, later, the civil rights movement. But progressivism also brought us onerous regulation of business, the ill-advised experiment with alcohol prohibition, progressive (i.e., unequal) taxation, the eugenics movement and related anti-fertility policies, and a generally paternalistic approach to governance.

The Democratic Party’s traditional policy stances are generally in-line with progressivism, although it is debatable whether progressivism is actually progressive (i.e., moving forward or onward). That’s a discussion for another day. What is curious is that the term ‘liberal’ has gotten bound up with the term ‘progressive,’ when they actually refer to very distinct and often divergent approaches to government.

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.