http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/come_on_lighten_up_im_just

hahahahahahahahaha.  This is just too good.

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I finished the first series/season of The West Wing over the weekend; I’m still enjoying it, but for me the show is saved by the character interactions and dialog.  It’s weak point, for me at least, is actually the premise and setting that gives us these characters.  I’m not necessarily saying that fictionalizing the Presidency and day-to-day White House business should be taboo, I just am not too interested in a show which is likely to show political bias and is likely to trivialize to some extent the office it portrays.

Sure, movies do this too, but this is a show that goes on much longer than any one film and thus attempts to be a representation, however faux, of everyday activity in the US executive branch.  I dunno, it just comes across a bit disingenuous.

Still, I enjoy most of the characters (I’d be hard-pressed to pick one I don’t like) and am almost guaranteed a good laugh or two each episode with the banter these characters bring, so I’m going to continue on to the second series — even despite the cliffhanger ending offered by the first (the ‘cliffhanger ending’ is a particularly loathesome peeve of mine).

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Admittedly, I’m not a highly educated person and that goes many times over again when it comes to economics and economic theory.  I’ve been attempting to educate myself on the different theories out there, sometimes feeling like Homer Simpson as I dig through the onion layers of reference until I wind up where I always seem to wind up: the dictionary.

Not long ago, I clicked on a link posted in a thread on the Rotten Tomatoes off-topic forums, which goes at length about the cause(s) of the current economic crisis.  The article is called Economic Recovery Requires Capital Accumulation, Not Government “Stimulus Packages” (brevity is clearly not the author’s forte) and is on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website, which apparently has something to do with the Austrian School of economics, which I’m not entirely sure about but seems to be focused on being fiscally conservative.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of the term ‘fiscally conservative’, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘don’t spend money you don’t have’.  Makes perfect sense to me.  Is that what the Austrian School is all about?  I don’t really know.

What I do know is that I found myself nodding my head in agreement through most of the article until the author chose to rant about the ‘extortion’ that is the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and the purpose of mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It’s not that the brief rant itself bothered me, nor necessarily the following attacks on Keynesian economics (apparently the nemesis of the Austrian School) and the case against stimulus packages.

No, what bothers me is that the author chose to rant about the CRA and Fannie and Freddie in lieu of focusing on the corruption of those in power — both in government and in big business — that misused regulatory instruments in place in order to gain more and more power and wealth for themselves.  I’m sure nobody could call Jeff Skilling or the other guys at Enron ‘fiscally conservative’, but this language is the same as that which Skilling employed when lambasting California energy consumers during the rolling blackouts several years back — it’s never the guys at the top of the food chain causing economic woe, it’s instead always the less fortunate who are weighing down progress.

I have a hard time reconciling the parts of the article which seem completely sensible to me with the suggestion that the cause of all our current problems is trying to help out people who for the most part do work hard but for jobs on the low end of the wage spectrum.

Equally troubling is that corrupted regulation is being used as an argument for no regulation at all.  I can’t help but think that a completely unregulated market will end up leaving us with a score of oligarchs who own nearly everything in the market and rip the economy to shreds just like what has happened in Russia.

Of course, this could be happening anyway.  Perhaps it already has.  I recently read an article about Ely Calil (Harper’s Magazine, March 2009, pp 53-61) that illuminated just how small the group is who actually keep the gears of the oil industry — an industry which affects the entire globe — turning.  Why should the other industries be any different?  After all, if the real impedence to progress is helping others, an oligarchy must be the height of economic evolution.

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I’m always skeptical of trying out new (new to me, at least) TV shows — unlike a 2-3 hour film, it usually takes much more time to give a ‘fair’ chance to any given show, obviously with exceptions that most likely will be different for everyone (although if you don’t like The Wire immediately, there may be a problem and you should consult your physician).

There are however some people — close friends only — with trustworthy tastes and the persistence to beat me over the head with the notion that I ‘really need to watch this show’.  One such friend, Dan, did everything short of breaking into my apartment and waking me up in a Martin Sheen mask and probably not wearing any pants (don’t ask) to get me to start watching The West Wing.

Finally, I added the first season to my Netflix queue and bumped the first disc to the top, then proceeded to watch the discs I had sitting on my desk, unopened, for the last several weeks.  Today I’ve finally been able to watch the show.

I must say, I’m rather enjoying it.  The characters are interesting, well-written and well-acted.  Some of the other production aspects I’m not terribly fond of, but it’s only the first season so that can always get better.   The important parts are there and I’m looking forward to watching more of this.

I’ll post more after I finish the first series.

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At the risk of being guilty of false advertising, I probably won’t be ranting angrily all that often.  Just ranting in general.  Sometimes angrily, I guess, but most of the time just going on and on with no real purpose.  Jumping from tangent to tangent haphazardly with no real binding thread.  Like going to the store and getting one ingredient from 15 different recipes and hoping it’ll make a soufflé.

Mmm, chocolate soufflé.

Ok, now I’m hungry.

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