The State of the Nation

Did you catch the State of the Nation address Tuesday night? Almost four months after winning the election, President Obama served up yet another mellifluous campaign speech in which he stated that we’ve been living beyond our means for far too long. Now we are about to enter an era of fiscal responsibility and austerity. And the President believes that the best way to face this new reality is to spend trillions of dollars that we don’t have in order to loosen credit and subsidize home ownership.

Someone more jaded than I might observe that years of loose monetary policy conducted by the Fed, combined with various government attempts to put every man, woman, and child into a three-bedroom split level regardless of income or credit history were the very things that got us into this mess in the first place. But keep in mind that President Obama isn’t content merely to magnify or expand upon past mistakes. He’s also planning massive spending increases in all the classic Democrat pet projects - government education, socialized medicine, and alternatives to sources of energy. Oops, I meant alternative energy sources.

And if you’re worried about the long-term consequences of all this spending, don’t be. Obama is going to fund the whole thing by giving 95% of working families a tax cut, while at the same time making sure that our children don’t inherit debt they can’t afford. He even said the check was in the mail.

So please, put aside your usual cynicism. Have you ever considered the possibility that massive spending increases coupled with tax decreases and no long-term debt only sounds too good to be true? President Obama has assured us that every penny of the trillions of dollars spewing out of the Fed’s printing press will be spent wisely. No fraud or waste will be tolerated in an Obama administration. And to prove it, the White House recently called members of Congress to attend a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit.” (If I’m not mistaken, next week Madonna is hosting a seminar on the “Joys of Celibacy.” Bill Clinton is the keynote speaker.)

Sure, there may have been a few things in the President’s address that could have gone better. No doubt he regrets claiming the automobile was invented in the United States – that one may follow him around like Al Gore’s claim to have invented the internet. And I could have sworn I heard even Nancy Pelosi chuckle when Obama said he didn’t believe in bigger government. One can only suspend one’s disbelief so far, I suppose.

And although it will go almost wholly unremarked upon, one of the biggest applause lines of the night came when the President mentioned the trillion-dollar deficit that he inherited. I assume the applause came from Democrats taking the opportunity to cheer a parting shot at the Bush administration. Far be it from me to defend the previous administration’s horrific record, or that of Congressional Republicans over the same period, but I did note that the very Democrats who were cheering were complicit in the reckless spending of the past eight years and are almost wholly responsible for the reckless spending of the past eight weeks. They might want to tone down the kettle-calling for a while, just in case.

But these are all minor points in the grand scheme of things. What’s probably most important to the Obama administration is that the news outlets bought the whole spiel. Indeed, they’ve barely been able to contain their glee. And on Thursday the White House will unveil its almost $3.7 trillion dollar budget, which is almost 20% larger than last year’s. This will sail through Congress with neither hitch nor hiccup.

So all in all, I’d have to say it was a pretty amazing State of the Nation speech. God, what I would give to hear a State of the Republic speech instead!

Of Regulations, Red Tape, and the Trade Deficit

(This piece originally appeared in The Whited Sepulchre. Thanks again, WS, for allowing me to take up some of your cyberspace.)

A number of pundits lately have declared that the current economic meltdown is proof that deregulation doesn’t work, or that markets can’t regulate themselves. Clearly, they argue, what we need is more government regulation and oversight. Evidently the same government that specifies the size of the holes in Swiss cheese and mandates the number of toilets each building must have just isn’t doing enough in the area of regulation.

The people calling for more red tape obviously don’t work in logistics. If they did, they would understand that the United States is already the most heavily regulated society in the history of man. The finance and banking industries are without a doubt the most heavily regulated sectors of the most heavily regulated society, but I suspect the logistics and transportation sectors aren’t too far behind.

Granted, my evidence is anecdotal rather than empirical, but given the fact that my entire job is dedicated to regulatory compliance, I think I speak with some authority. When I’m not busy annoying socialists with free-market blog posts, I spend most of my waking hours making sure my company complies with all of the relevant federal regulations covering exports.

And there are a lot of them. So many, in fact, that the bureaucrats hold a conference in Washington, D.C. each year just to review the changes in the regulations. The conference doesn’t cover all the regulations, mind you, just the changes from the previous year. But even that takes three full days. Last year there were well over a thousand attendees (and they were just the ones who managed to get in - demand for the conference routinely outstrips capacity). That’s at least 24,000 man-hours of lost productivity just so we can understand what’s different this year from last.

One of the many focus areas of the latest conference was a new electronic filing requirement mandated by the US Census Bureau. You probably thought that Census only existed to count the number of people and identify the languages spoken in your household once every decade. But it turns out that they are also responsible for compiling all of the statistics that go into those weighty government reports that are ignored by your elected representatives as they vote to separate you from your money.

But the boys and girls from the Census bureau were all fired up for this latest conference. And why were they so excited to see us this time? Because their new regulations increase the penalties for errors. In the past, the most Census could fine a violator was a paltry $1000 per mistake. Now, though, the penalties can include fines of up to $250,000 and - this is where it gets really exciting – jail time! The folks at the Census Bureau couldn’t be happier. They finally get to throw people in jail, just like the big kids in the other branches of government.

Now I know a lot of non-libertarians just roll their eyes when they hear us yammer on about the “gun of government,” but it’s no exaggeration. Seriously – the guy with the gun actually gave a one-hour PowerPoint presentation about all of the terrible things he was willing to do us if we stepped out of line. Ironically, he was the most engaging and entertaining speaker of the entire event.

So what could be so important about this new filing requirement that they’re willing (and eager) to put people behind bars over it? It’s not about national security – that’s covered by a whole host of other government bureaucrats (who also carry guns). As I mentioned earlier, the Census bureau compiles statistics. And one of their most important (in their minds, at least) functions is to calculate the trade deficit. The fact that the US has been running a trade deficit for years is a horrible state of affairs according to the bureaucrats in D.C. To correct this “problem,” they drop a thousand pages of new regulations on our desks each year, threaten us with fines and imprisonment if we screw up on any of them, and then tell us we should export more. And when the conference ends they hand us pocket calculators that were made in China. Seriously.

Lots of people get torqued up about the trade deficit, of course – just take Lou Dobbs (please). Lou has made a fortune complaining about the trade deficit, but he’s not pointing a gun at anyone to make it go away (at least as far as I know). I’m not sure why the trade deficit evokes such a fierce reaction in so many people, since any first-year economics major can tell you it’s a completely meaningless number. To see just how ridiculous the whole thing is, allow me to summarize an illustration originally provided by my favorite economist, Frederic Bastiat. (It seems they were torqued up about the trade deficit in 19th century France as well).

A French merchant ships goods valued at €200,000 to the United States. After freight, insurance, and cost of goods sold, the merchant pockets €40,000. He then imports American goods valued at €320,000, which he turns around and sells for €400,000. Foolishly, he believes that he has made a profit of €120,000 from these two transactions - €40,000 from the first shipment to America, and another €80,000 from the sale of the imported American goods. To the layman, this may seem like a pretty good business model. It might even appear to be the kind of thing one might wish to continue. But there’s a problem, you see. France now has a trade deficit with the United States – after all, she wisely exported €200,000, but then foolishly imported €320,000. All the politicians start whining that France has “given away” €120,000 to foreigners.

Later, the same merchant ships out another €200,000 worth of French goods. But the ship is lost at sea. For some strange reason, the merchant records this as a loss of €200,000. But how can that be? After all, the trade deficit is now greatly improved. French Customs recorded €200,000 of exports, and there were no corresponding imports. Not only has the previous trade deficit with the United States been erased, but France now finds itself in the eviable position of having a trade surplus of €80,000.

Based on the logic of the balance of payments, it becomes obvious that France can easily double its capital at any moment. All the French have to do is load their goods onto ships, and once they’ve cleared Customs, dump them into the ocean. France will gain all that the sea swallows up.

With Bastiat’s illustration in mind, worrying about the trade deficit doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. So does it make any sense to threaten people with jail time over it? And even if we were to accept the primitive notion that exports are good and imports are bad, why would we wish to increase the regulatory burden associated with exporting from the United States? If the trade deficit were the demonic force most people believe it to be, then surely we would want to reduce the costs associated with exporting, not increase them.

This regulatory burden is by no means limited to the export sector. All areas of American economic life are burdened by miles of red tape – to a far greater degree than most people realize. Every one of these regulations increases the cost of doing business in the United States. Presumably we should be looking for ways to cut the cost of doing business in this country so that we could afford to do more of it. This should be standard practice even in the best of times, but given the depressed state of the economy it is more important now than ever.

An Appointment In Damascus

President Obama will sign the latest trillion-dollar spending bill today in Denver. According to the President, this bill is a “major milestone on our road to recovery.” As he has said before, Obama fears that failure to unleash another mind-bendingly large deficit spending package could "turn a crisis into a catastrophe." And just to allay any fears of the inflationary effects of such spending, Obama reminded everyone that the deficit exploded on President Bush’s watch as well. Evidently that’s supposed to make everything okay. The Obama team’s economic policy to date can be summed up as, “In for a penny, in for a trillion dollars.”

As I watch this slow-motion fiscal train wreck unfold, an old parable comes to mind. Once upon a time there was a rich man who lived in Amman. One morning he went into his garden only to find Death there, staring at him. Terrified, the man ran back inside and told his servant that he was going to Damascus to escape Death, who was waiting for him in the garden. After the man departed, the servant went into the garden and asked Death, "Why were you staring at my master?" Death replied, "I was surprised to see him here. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight in Damascus."

In this parable, the man’s desperate attempt to avoid death by fleeing to Damascus is exactly what seals his fate. And so it is with the current economic crisis. Obama’s attempt to avoid the inevitable effects of decades of government intervention in the free market is precisely what will deepen the depression he so desperately wants to avoid. As bad as the economy Obama inherited was, his panicked Keynesian spending spree will only make it worse by preventing needed structural adjustments and adding massive inflationary pressure to an already devalued fiat currency.

Those with a basic understanding of free-market economics can clearly see not only what awaits us farther down this road, but also the missteps that led us to this point in the first place. Nevertheless, we are all being pulled toward our economic doom by a panicked government desperate to avoid the fate its own actions have devised.

See you in Damascus…

The Cure Is Worse Than the Disease

Another day, another trillion dollars…this week the Senate passed an $838 billion “stimulus” bill. All that’s left now is to paper over the differences with the House version, throw in a couple more billion dollars, and start spending like Paris Hilton on a bender. This week’s stimulus bill is not to be confused with the previous stimulus and/or bailout packages known as TARP and TALF, which cost $700 billion and $800 billion respectively. All in, the federal government’s various spending packages over the past six months total just over $2.3 trillion. And that’s just the nominal cost, which doesn’t factor in things such as interest. When the long-term costs are included, the total price tag comes in somewhere around $8.5 trillion.

I’ve been trying to conceptualize just how much money we’re talking about here. Frankly, it’s an impossible task, since no human being has any sense of what these astronomical sums really mean. But to put it in perspective, let’s start with TARP. The nominal price of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was $700 billion, $350 billion of which vanished without a trace under the watchful eye and steady hand of then-Secretary Paulson. The remaining $350 billion is going to be spent by current Secretary of the Treasury and tax-dodger-in-chief Geithner, but the details are still a little fuzzy. So fuzzy, in fact, that Wall Street dropped another 300 points upon hearing them.

Immediately after TARP came TALF, Bernanke’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, which came in at a cool $800 billion, bringing the total nominal cost of the bailout program to $1.5 trillion before the end of last year. Throw in the $838 billion package being bandied about Congress this week, and the grand total comes to $2.338 trillion.

Just to get a sense of how much money $2.338 trillion really is, consider the fact that the US government spent the equivalent of $5 trillion (in today’s ever-shrinking dollars) to fight all of World War II. The sum of all the goods and services produced in the United States in a year is approximately $14.6 trillion, so the Bush and Obama adminstrations’ panicked taxpayer-funded spending sprees represent 16% of GDP.

All of this spending, we’re told, is absolutely necessary to save us from certain doom. And according to President Obama, “the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.” Of course, as readers are well aware, the federal government doesn’t actually have any resources at all – it only has that which it takes away from the private sector. With this simple truth in mind, one has to wonder how the economy as a whole can be improved simply by taking money out of the private sector and then pouring some of it back in. This is what economist and historian Robert Higgs refers to as “swimming pool economics.” It’s like taking a cup of water from the deep end of the pool, pouring it into the shallow end, and expecting the overall water level to rise.

I don’t know if Obama and company actually believe this ridiculous theory, or if they’re just acting like they do in a deperate effort to “do something” (and vastly expand the scope of government control over the economy in the process). I suspect it’s a bit of both. One thing is for certain, though. The government only has three options for getting their hands on $2.3 trillion – by raising taxes, printing money, or borrowing it. No single method is going to be sufficient, so a combination of all three will be used. That means that we’ll all have less money in our pockets, and what little money we do manage to hang onto will buy fewer goods and services. And to top it all off, the massive increase in the national debt will impact generations to come.

The official Washington mantra for all of this ugliness is that the risk of doing nothing is just too great. I’m not convinced that’s true. If the “cure” for the disease is worse than the disease itself, you’re better off just living with the disease. And if the “cure” for the disease is being touted by the same group of people who are responsible for the infection in the first place, you might want to get a second opinion from a smarter doctor.

The Shape of Things to Come

CNN seems bullish on Obama’s economic stimulus plan, even if public support for the second trillion-dollar spending spree in five months appears to be waning somewhat. Not that low public support should be much of an obstacle. After all, Congress passed then-Treasury Secretary Paulson’s $700 billion bailout over the objections of 99% of those polled. Support among CNN glitterati appears to be much more solid. Campbell Brown, Donald Trump, and editorial contributor Nell Minnow all stand firmly behind President Obama’s recent decision to dictate unilaterally how much money certain Americans will be allowed to earn here in the Land of the Free. CNN does give some space to a few dissenters, such as Harvard University’s Jeffrey Miron, but by and large it seems that the world’s most-watched news network’s only concern is that the Sovietization of the US economy isn’t going fast enough. Today, the conversation sounds like this:

FROM CNN, FEBRUARY 2009
Part I – Obama Sets Executive Pay Limits
Pledging to take "the air out of golden parachutes," President Obama announced Wednesday that executives of companies receiving federal bailout money will have their pay capped at $500,000 under a revised financial compensation plan.

Last year's "shameful" handout of $18 billion in Wall Street bonuses "is exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else," Obama said to reporters at the White House.

"For top executives to award themselves these kinds of compensation packages in the midst of this economic crisis isn't just bad taste -- it's a bad strategy -- and I will not tolerate it. We're going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for federal aid -- so that when firms seek new federal dollars, we won't find them up to the same old tricks," the president added.

Under Obama's plan, companies that want to pay their executives more than $500,000 will have to do so through stocks that cannot be sold until the companies pay back the money they borrow from the government. The rules will be implemented by the Treasury Department and do not need to be approved by Congress.

Part II – Trump: Obama ‘Absolutely Right’ On Executive Pay Cap
Donald Trump, businessman and CEO of The Trump Organization, knows a little something about money. Trump spoke with CNN's Larry King about whether there should be executive pay limits, if there should be a stimulus plan and when there could be an end to the economic downturn. The following is an edited portion of the interview.

Larry King: Is Obama right or wrong to go after these executives with salary caps?
Donald Trump: Well, I think he's absolutely right. Billions of dollars is being given to banks and others. You know, once you start using taxpayer money, it's a whole new game. So I absolutely think he's right.

King: What about the whole concept of bailouts?
Trump: Well, it's a little bit different. A lot of people are not in favor of bailouts. You know, we talked about all the different things going on in this country. Let's face it, Larry, we are in a depression.

If they didn't do the bailout, you would be in depression No. 2 and maybe just as big as depression No. 1, so they really had to do something. The problem is they're giving millions and billions of dollars to banks and the banks aren't loaning it.

If you are a prime customer of a bank and if you need 10 cents, you can't get it. The banks are out of business. They're not loaning. Now, billions of dollars has been given. They're supposed to be loaning out that money and they're using it for other purposes, so it is a real mess.

King: If you were in the Senate, would you vote for the stimulus plan?
Trump: Well, I'd vote for a stimulus plan. I'm not sure that all of the things in there are appropriate. Some of the little toys that they have are not really appropriate, and they're a little surprising that they seem to want it, because the publicity on it has been terrible.

I would certainly vote for a stimulus, but I would really vote for banks having to loan out the money because they're not doing that.

Part III – Commentary: Penalties Absent From New Pay Cap Rules
Editor's note: Campbell Brown anchors CNN's "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull" at 8 p.m. ET Mondays through Fridays. She delivered this commentary during the "Cutting through the Bull" segment of Wednesday night's broadcast.

All this week, we're focusing on President Obama's promise of transparency and accountability and to that end, we applaud his announcement today of a pay cap for corporate CEO's taking bailout money. But what we didn't hear anything about today -- as the president, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs praised the virtues of the new rules -- was talk of penalties. Real penalties for those who have mishandled the money and betrayed our trust. Penalties for those who may mishandle our money in the future. It's one thing to freeze pay, it's another to demand real accountability going forward. We weren't the only ones scratching our heads after today's announcement.

Part IV – Commentary: Wall Street Finally Got What It Deserved
Editor's note: Nell Minow is editor and chairwoman of the Corporate Library, an independent research company, and was named one of the 20 most influential people in corporate governance by Directorship magazine and "the queen of good corporate governance" by BusinessWeek Online. She has co-written three books.

I would have preferred to have the corporate community demonstrate some sense of responsibility, leadership and self-preservation by taking steps themselves to establish a compensation system that communicated a commitment to investors and taxpayers. When they failed to do so, the government had no choice but to step in.

Alright, so be it. I’m not going to defend Wall Street firms that chose to make a deal with the federal devil by begging for taxpayer money. Nor do I claim that these are particularly well-run firms that haven’t made colossal blunders. But I can’t help wonder how the conversation will go a few years from now, after we’ve hit cruise control on the Road to Serfdom. Perhaps four years down the road, the CNN reports will sound something like this:

FROM CNN, FEBRUARY 2013
Part I – Obama Sets Calorie Limits
Pledging to take “the Crisco out of Christmas,” President Obama announced Wednesday that those individuals covered by his administration’s newly enacted universal healthcare program will have their caloric intake capped at 1700 calories a day under a revised health plan.

Last year’s “shameful” holiday banquets, filled with high-calorie foods such as pumpkin pie, fruitcake, and eggnog, “is exactly the kind of disregard for the costs and consequences of their actions that brought about this crisis: a culture of narrow self-interest and short-term gain at the expense of everything else," Obama said to reporters at the White House.

“For people to award themselves these kinds of unhealthy treats in the midst of this nation’s obesity epidemic isn’t just bad taste – it’s a bad strategy – and I will not tolerate it. We’re going to be demanding some restraint in exchange for universal government health care – so that when people receive taxpayer-funded medical services, we won’t find them up to the same old tricks,” the president added.

Under Obama’s plan, Americans will no longer be allowed to eat unhealthy foods, drink alcoholic beverages, or smoke. The rules will be implemented by the Department of Health and Human Services, and do not need to be approved by Congress.

Part II – Trump: Obama ‘Absolutely Right’ On Calorie Caps
Donald Trump, businessman and CEO of The Trump Organization, knows a little something about rich foods. Trump spoke with CNN's Larry King about whether there should be calorie limits, if there should be universal healthcare and when there could be an end to the obesity crisis. The following is an edited portion of the interview.

Larry King: Is Obama right or wrong to go after these people with limits on their caloric intake?
Donald Trump: Well, I think he's absolutely right. Billions of dollars are being given to doctors and patients. You know, once you start using taxpayer money, it's a whole new game. So I absolutely think he's right.

King: What about the whole concept of universal healthcare?
Trump: Well, it's a little bit different. A lot of people are not in favor of government medical insurance. You know, we talked about all the different things going on in this country. Let's face it, Larry, we are in an obesity crisis.

If they didn't do the universal healthcare plan, you would be in size XXL by now and maybe just as big as XXXL, so they really had to do something. The problem is they're giving millions and billions of dollars to hospitals and the people just aren’t losing weight.

King: If you were in the Senate, would you have voted for the healthcare plan?
Trump: Well, I'd have voted for a healthcare plan. I'm not sure that all of the things in there are appropriate. Some of the little toys that they have are not really appropriate, and they're a little surprising that they seem to want it, because the publicity on it has been terrible. But listen, Larry, I’m not even sure why this is a big deal. Back in the financial crisis of ‘09 we established that government could dictate how much money we were allowed to make since taxpayer money was being used for things like corporate bailouts and economic stimulus plans, right?

President Obama is simply applying that same logic to our current obesity crisis. Now that our healthcare system is funded almost entirely by taxpayer money, it makes all the sense in the world to have government dictate what we may or may not eat, or how often or how much. What’s the difference between restrictions on how much we’re allowed to earn and how much we’re allowed to eat? After all, we all pay for healthcare.

Part III – Commentary: Penalties Absent From New Diet Rules
Editor's note: Campbell Brown anchors CNN's "Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull" at 8 p.m. ET Mondays through Fridays. She delivered this commentary during the "Cutting through the Bull" segment of Monday night's broadcast.

All this week, we're focusing on President Obama's promise of transparency and accountability and to that end, we applaud his announcement today of a limit on the daily caloric intake for people taking universal healthcare money. But what we didn't hear anything about today -- as the president, the head of the Deparment of Health and Human Services, and the Press Secretary praised the virtues of the new rules -- was talk of penalties. Real penalties for those who have eaten junk food and betrayed our trust. Penalties for those who may eat junk food in the future. It's one thing to limit calories, it's another to demand real accountability going forward. We weren't the only ones scratching our heads after today's announcement.

Part IV – Commentary: Holiday Eaters Finally Got What They Deserved
Editor's note: Richard Simmons is an American fitness instructor, and the creator of “Sweatin’ to the Oldies.”

I would have preferred to have people demonstrate some sense of responsibility, nutrition and self-control by taking steps themselves to establish a diet that communicated a commitment to taxpayers. When they failed to do so, the government had no choice but to step in.

I can’t wait.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, R.I.P. (Rebelde, Imbécil, Pendejo)

The Washington Times reports that actor Benicio del Toro left an interview abruptly when questioned about his role in the new Steven Soderbergh film, Che. Pues, Benicio, conoces el dicho, ¿no? If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the lead role in a disgusting hagiography of a scumbag mass murderer.

I heard Benicio del Toro say he wishes people (like me) would watch the movie before coming to any conclusions about it. I’m sure he does, particularly if his deal includes a percentage of the gross (never settle for a percentage of the net profit – that’s a sucker’s bet). But for some reason, I just can’t bring myself to sit through a four-and-a-half hour insult to my intelligence and pay for the privilege. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe Benicio del Toro’s portrayal of Ernesto “Che” Guevara is powerful yet nuanced. Perhaps his screen presence, guided by Steven Soderbergh’s sublime direction, will convince me to look at Che in a new light, and forget the fact that Guevara personally murdered hundreds of innocent Cubans and condemned the survivors to generations of misery under a communist dictator. Somehow, though, I doubt it.

I’m quite sure del Toro is genuinely surprised by whatever negative reaction he’s been getting for portraying the left’s poster-boy psychopath. He’s probably used to hanging out with the likes of Johnny Depp, Carlos Santana, Robert Redford, and all the other Hollywood nimrods who worship el carnicero de La Cabaña. When pressed by Che skeptics, though, del Toro goes to great lengths to sanitize the historical record, using every cheap euphemism he can think of.

Didn’t Che murder hundreds of political prisoners for fun? Not according to del Toro. "They didn't do it blindly; they had trials. They found them guilty, and they executed them - that's capital punishment." There may be something to the argument that capital punishment is murder, but this is not the point del Toro is making. He is not drawing a moral equivalence between the death penalty and murder, he’s drawing a moral equivalence between a fair trial by a jury of one’s peers and a Soviet-style show trial, where a dictator and his gang of thugs execute (as Che himself said) “at the smallest doubt.”

What sent Mr. del Toro heading for the exit in the middle of the interview, however, was the use of the term “concentration camp” to describe the political prison known as La Cabaña. I’m not sure why this term should be so offensive, as it is the term used by the survivors of that very facility.

Hollywood, however, would prefer we overlook all of these troublesome details and merely focus on the supposed good intentions of Castro and his merry band of murderers. After all, prior to Castro, Cuba was run by a corrupt dictator. Now Cuba is still run by a corrupt dictator, but it’s a leftist corrupt dictator, so we’re supposed to believe that this is somehow better. But even if we were to grant the ridiculous notion that the Cuban revolution was launched with nothing but the best intentions, presumably the rationale behind Castro’s overthrow of the Batista regime was to make life on the island better, not worse. So how’s that working out? Under the pre-revolutionary corrupt dictatorship, Cuba was the wealthiest country in Latin America. Today, it is easily one of the poorest (and when you’re poor in Latin America, you’re really poor).

But they have good doctors and universal health care, right? Yes, I suppose that’s technically true. Of course the hospitals don’t have even the most basic medicines on their shelves, but if they did I’m sure it would be a lovely healthcare experience.

All in all, I’m just not convinced. I wouldn’t trade my freedoms for the best doctor in the world, and I can’t bring myself to look at Che Guevara as anything but the villain he was. And as far as the new Soderbergh flick is concerned, I suspect that the critique Anthony Daniels made of Robert Redford’s Motorcycle Diaries applies to Che as well:

"It is as if someone were to make a film about Adolf Hitler by portraying him as a vegetarian who loved animals and was against unemployment. This would be true, but ... rather beside the point."

Note: For more information on the Guevara record, check out the following links:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/fontova/fontova63.html
http://reason.tv/video/show/661.html
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207390078