Stories At The Margin
columnist: Christopher Espinal

Topic: Presidential Campaign 2008
Obama Criticized by Edwards for Reagan Reference

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The economics behind Edwards and why Edwards is wrong!

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by Christopher Espinal
(Conservative)
Friday, January 18, 2008

"He was openly - openly - intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment."

John Edwards made this comment about Ronald Reagan in response to Barack Obama's reference to his similarity with the former Republican President. Now this certainly shows how ignorant Edwards can be about Reagan's policies and economics. Reagan championed the right for the worker to collectively bargain but he despised those unions that fought long and hard to distort natural market conditions in their favor.

Now here is a situation where Reagan probably signaled a sense of intolerance towards Unions. In August 3^rd, 1981 the Federal Air Traffic Controllers Union went on strike violating the 1947 Taft-Hartley act. Reagan demanded that these employees return to work within 48 hours. You and I both know that people who strike generally have a lot of testosterone flowing through their bloodstreams, even if they're women. They just don't give up for their 200% wage increase until they challenge a serious machine like Reagan. Thus, they didn't comply with the Taft Hartley act within the gratuitous 48 hour grace period so the machine fired 11,345 air traffic controllers in one day.

Of course liberal border line communists went on a hissy fit complaining that Mr. Reagan lacks a sympathetic bone in his body. The right wing loyalists cheered on Reagan with no understanding as to why he deserves applause.

Well let's understand the way these monstrous and inefficient government programs run by unions really work. Firstly, government related unions like lobbying organizations have a huge impact on politics. Economists like to say that unions capture political influence. The workers vote so politicians usually pander to this crowd to capture the externality of union political-influence.

These unions that bargain for government contracts have so much influence, that government paid workers normally receive some of the finest benefits than worthy middle class occupations. Government workers usually have indexed salaries adjusted for inflation. Not to mention, they also receive reasonable raises in their salary every so often. So why do they complain? Let's just say they want to improve their luxurious life of leisure like the European socialists. In productive parts of the world like in the United States, where we get paid to do things, laborers usually receive raises if they exhibit an improvement in their productivity by enhancing their human capital by education or experience. But, darn it, it's not fair that smarter people with more education who go on to get careers in law and banking get paid more than people who dropped out of high school with two kids.

Thus, it boils down to the subjective and the ill defined term "fairness." At what level should workers consider their pay fair enough ? when janitors make the same amount of money as corporate lawyers? This arbitrary language is what people like John Edwards love to spew during rallies in picturesque neighbors in South Carolina. However, I believe he is stupid enough to adhere to the irresponsible nonsense he uses as pander talk to middle class Americans who worry about giving their homes a new coat of paint.

Want to hear more irresponsible nonsense from this democratic presidential hopeful who should feel hopeless in these tight primaries? According to Mr. Edwards, we should favor the middle class by taxing the rich who give the middle class jobs. Taxing becomes a very tough matter to discuss with those who favor a particular class and not rationality. Reality states, it doesn't matter who you tax because the burden falls on everyone!

Taxing the rich more than the 45% they already have to pay distorts their incentive to make more money. This causes an implicit tax on the middle class since higher tax rates can stifle economic growth and rises in wages. Up the tax on the middle class and you get quite the same distortion of incentives. The middle class will lose the incentive to work more and increase their productivity which can also stifle economic growth. So much for econ-tarded populist John Edwards!

To be honest the real point that I should make is that we just don't want to overdue the tax-thang. I have much to believe that given their rhetoric and condemnation for free markets, both Obama and Edwards really want to over-nationalize everything and give every American a quality and free education. Do I really have a problem with these handouts that make no economic sense? No because it's just a tradeoff. They are giving up long term economic security in the United States for short term benefits like hand outs to everyone besides the rich for the sake of votes. In the future, our situation may be so bad that we will not have such friendly options to give out government rewards for doing less or absolutely nothing.

Lastly, Edwards tried to attack Reagan's policies by talking environment. You know. The word you throw in to oust those anthropocentric classist conservatives and rile up the dirty barefoot middle class who barely get a full meal. I'm not faithful to conservative economics, but given Jimmy Carter's crazy spending habits in the Middle East and horrible policies to curb inflation, helping the environment at the expense of an unbearable economy just doesn't sound right.

According to Edwards, in a time of high unemployment we should force companies to comply with stricter environmental regulations, thus contracting the amount of money available for business expansion, forcing a shift in the labor demand curve due to higher factor input costs? I'm pretty sure Edwards' horrible economic policy advice would have lead to his assassination.

The funny thing is that Barack Obama himself plans to spend so much money on worthless initiatives like national healthcare. I'll get on that in another post. But I do understand the Obama Reagan comparison. Mr. Obama represents a man of change for the better just like Mr. Reagan during his times. Before, people were ready for something new in politics, and they are ready for something new today. His fresh new face and constant message of change makes people shiver when he passionately takes charge of the stage. Or does he say change so often that the validity effect takes hold on the sheep that vote?

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2008 Christopher Espinal, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, January 18, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, January 20, 2008

The views expressed in this article are those of Christopher Espinal only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Christopher Espinal is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.

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