Refuting The Left-Wing Dishrag

Robert Samuelson eviscerates a silly editorial put forth by the New York Times...

Who creates most jobs? Hint: It’s not the government. Almost everyone seems to grasp that the private sector is the true jobs machine. But here’s a notable exception to the consensus: the editorial page of The New York Times. The other day, its lead editorial was “The Myth of Job Creation: The government does in fact create jobs, important jobs, millions of them.” In 35 years, I can’t recall ever writing a column refuting an editorial. But this one warrants special treatment because the Times’ argument is so simplistic, the subject is so important and the Times is such an influential institution.

...Government does create jobs, including “teachers, police officers, firefighters, soldiers, sailors, astronauts, epidemiologists, antiterrorism agents, park rangers, diplomats. ...” There are 22 million federal, state and local workers, notes the Times.
Case closed, it asserts. And it’s true that, legally, government does expand employment. But economically, it doesn’t — and that’s what people usually mean when they say “government doesn’t create jobs.”

What the Times omits is the money to support all these government jobs. It must come from somewhere — generally, taxes or loans (bonds, bills). But if the people whose money is taken via taxation or borrowing had kept the money, they would have spent most or all of it on something — and that spending would have boosted employment.

Job creation in the private sector is mostly a spontaneous and circular process. People buy things they need and want. Or businesses and private investors take risks by investing in new products, technologies and factories. All this spending, driven by self-interest and the profit motive, supports more jobs. In a smoothly functioning market economy, the process feeds on itself. By contrast, public-sector employment grows only when government claims some private-sector income to pay its workers. Government is not creating jobs. It’s substituting public-sector workers for private-sector workers.

As the Times points out, even President Obama seems to disagree with them (at least, he says he does). It would seem to be strange that the Times editorial board would take such a silly position, until you realize that they seem to take a number of silly positions.

Sometimes, Even the Dishrag Gets It Right

Newsbusters spots this line in an article in the New York Times:

"And in the evening at least, MSNBC is less a news provider than a carousel of liberal opinion — potential conflicts of interest are swept aside in the swirl of excitable guests."

Two thoughts come to mind:

1.  How is MSNBC different at other times of day?  Is it less a carousel of liberal opinion and more of a tilt-a-whirl?

2.  How is that different from the New York Times in general?  Do they distinguish themselves by virtue of having a subpar sports section, terrible paywall, and excellent Sunday crossword?

The Secular Religion

The left-wing dishrag refers to advocacy in favor of recycling school lunch materials as "parent-to-parent evangelism".  I totally favor recycling, but being lectured by others on how to live my life... aren't liberals opposed to that stuff?

Stuff  like this makes me want to pack everyone of my kid's lunches in brown paper bags, with seperate Ziploc bags for every item.  Unless they want to tell me that we can go back to the old school metal lunch boxes, like my Dukes of Hazzard lunch box from first grade.  In that case, I'm on board with the movement.  I miss that lunchbox.

The Slow Death Of The Dishrag

Dana Loesch notes that even the New York Times editors think paying for delivery of the dead tree version of the left-wing dishrag is dumb (hat tip: Instapundit).  It's been at least a decade since I paid for home delivery of a newspaper, and other than the occassional purchase in an airport on travel, I might have bought a newspaper twice in the last eight years.  Outside of habit, I'm not sure why people still get delivery.  As to the dish-rag, I might need to start referring to it as something other than a dishrag whenever it goes all digital.

Latest Dumb Statement By A New York Times Communist... Oops, I Meant Columnist

New York Times editorial columnist Frank Rich makes a bid for dumbest column of the year by comparing the Tea Party activists to Nazis...

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

I'd call Rich a douchebag, but that would insult feminine hygeine products. And that's before we get to Rich's decision to compare anti-government Tea Party activists to the fascist big government of Hitler. Professor Bainbridge wipes the mat with Rich's stupidity and that of Dem. Rep. Alan Grayson...

What we're seeing here are continuing efforts on the part of some left-liberals to use the ravings of a small fringe to delegitimize any dissent...


Indeed, at this point, an observer with a predilection for conspiracy theories would be wondering whether these efforts are being coordinated by dark forces. My money's on the Free Masons and the Trilateral Commission as being at the center of the vast left-wing conspiracy.

I'd also blame the reverse vampires.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

Someone at the left-wing dishrag had way too much fun writing this headline: Gay Guardsman Has Returned to Drills With His Unit. (hat tip: Tom Maguire) In their defense, I'm not sure that my high school paper would have passed on that headline, either.

This Is Why You Should Always Start By Reading The Sports Section

Tom Maguire notes that the left-wing dishrag's frontpage doesn't look good for the President. Maybe that tipping point has been reached. The President is probably hoping the Times and the press will get back to important issues, like finding Tiger Woods' 17th mistress.