Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Fallacy of the "Do-Nothing" Nobel

Politics and economics

It's great that our new President won the Nobel Peace Prize, but perhaps yes like Lech Walesa said it's perhaps too early and like others who have said it doesn't do Prez Obama any favors as who likes to be given something for nothing? It hurts both the giver and the receiver.

But the Prez has not done nothing. Here is just a short list of things that Workers throws out as not being so 'peace-oriented':

* Built-up troops in Afghanistan instead of unwinding there as he said he would.
* Re-appointed bailout Ben Bernanke which means the institutionalization of unjust bailouts and their attendent redistribution upwards to the wealthy financial sector oligopolists.
* Violated the rights of GM bondholders in favor of the special interest labor unions. It should be noted that Walesa's Solidarity union was against the State-suppression in Poland, not aided by same.
* Put trade barriers on importation on Chinese tires into the US, which hurts our biggest trading partner and who also holds our debt and who is starting to retaliate. This economic nationalism is not at all "peace"-ful.
* Tried to sell "stimulus" spending (e.g., more unsustainable debt creation) to the Europeans, e.g., if the US is getting in more debt, let's export that idea so it hurst us less badly. Luckily, sanely, the Europeans didn't fall for it, just a little bit on their own before-hand.

Let's be honest and admit it is not a "do-nothing" Nobel. It is just politics trumping economics, which is what happens because people naturally like famous, popular people. Of course, after 8 years of overt war-mongering the world is happy to see someone who talks of working together. But still the facts listed above might speak for themselves.