Posted by
The Hermit Crab on Friday, December 04, 2009 12:41:27 PM
James Taranto of Online.wsj.com published an interesting
Best of the Web column this Wednesday, and I wanted to add a few observations. One item read:
The $787 billion fiscal stimulus program approved in February is working pretty much as expected, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday. U.S. employment is about 600,000 to 1.6 million higher, and real gross domestic product is about 1.2% to 3.2% higher than they would have been without the stimulus, CBO said. That estimate is nearly identical to the CBO's assessment in March. The CBO based its estimates on long-standing relationships between additional spending and economic growth, rather than relying on incomplete and inaccurate reports from companies awarded federal contracts. Much of the direct government spending in the stimulus bill is yet to come.
Did we read that right? Yes, we did. Here's the actual CBO report:
Estimating the law's overall effects on employment requires a more comprehensive analysis than the recipients' reports provide. Therefore, looking at the actual amounts spent so far (where identifiable) and estimates of the other effects of ARRA on spending and revenues, CBO has estimated the law's impact on employment and economic output using evidence about how previous similar policies have affected the economy and various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. On that basis, CBO estimates that in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United States.
So the CBO's estimate is "nearly identical" to the one in March because it is based on exactly the same information: the cost of the stimulus and the putative effect of spending that much money. It's like a restaurant reviewer who estimates the quality of a meal by looking at the prices on the menu.
I would add that this is in fact a political masterpiece of a sort. By structuring a system by which the "stimulus" is evaluated striclty by historical evidence rather than by current results, the apparently formerly non-partisan CBO has built a system immune to adverse current evidence. They can declare that by their definition, the stimulus is successful, and they fear no rising unemployment rate, because the current unemployment rate appears nowhere in the calculations.
Earlier this year, I said that the CBO Director Doug Elmendorf had ruined one of my at-home jokes. I watch Wheel of Fortune regularly with my wife, and whenever the category "Fictional Character" came up, I would say "Honest Democrat". I suppose I can start using that line again.
Another item read:
It Isn't Rocket Science
Great news! Yesterday
we noted the story of John Brodniak, a 23-year-old Oregon man who needs brain surgery but, according to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, has been unable to get it because of deficiencies in Oregon's Medicaid program. In a blog entry, Kristof reports that "a couple of surgeons in Oregon have offered to help John without charge. It looks as if things will work out." Moreover, blogress
Michelle Malkin, surveying the comments on Kristof's original column, finds that in fact there are facilities in Oregon where Brodniak can get the help he needs.
Kristof argued that Brodniak's plight made the case for ObamaCare. This conclusion actually made no sense, as we noted yesterday, but now that Brodniak is going to be fine, the point is moot. Congress, go home. We don't need ObamaCare after all.
Actually, it proves beyond dispute what an awful idea Obamacare is, since in the bills being proposed, the big -hearted doctors who plan to volunteer their services to perform Mr. Brodniak's surgery would not be free to do so. The government would not only control who can receive certain services, it also would control who can give them. In essence, the doctors would work only for the governemt, with no moonlighting or voluntary practicing allowed.
What a hideous prospect...
Finally, on a lighter ghastly note, there was this item:
The Elk and Its Ilk
"A Swedish man who was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife has been cleared, after police decided she was probably killed by an elk," the BBC reports:
Ingemar Westlund, aged 68, found the dead body of his wife Agneta, 63, by a lake close to the village of Loftahammer in September 2008.
He was immediately arrested and held in police custody for 10 days.
Now the case has been dropped after forensic analysis found elk hair and saliva on his wife's clothes. . . .
The European elk, or moose, is usually considered to be shy and will normally run away from humans. But Swedish Radio International says the animals can become aggressive after eating fermented fallen apples in gardens.
It's a sad story, but it's funny how closely the description of the elk--"usually considered to be shy"--matches the stereotypical quote from the neighbor of a serial killer: "He was a quiet man, he kept to himself."
Fermented fallen apples? Wouldn't that be rather like hard cider? If this article had appeared in the New York Post, the headline might have been "Woman Slain by Drunken Moose!"
Dear reader, enjoy your weekend. One of us ought to.