Megan McArdle is Back

Same Megan, new venue. She's been on leave-of-absence for the last few months (writing a book?). I've been reading her since she was blogging from a trailer in the bottom of Ground Zero and she's always worth the time to read. Here's her take on the upcoming Supreme Court decision on Obamacare.

Economic Illiteracy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Barack Obama on the Romney campaign pointing out that there is a difference betweeen "outsourcing" and "offshoring": “Yesterday, his advisers tried to clear this up by telling us that there was a difference between ‘outsourcing’ and ‘offshoring.’ Seriously. You can’t make that up.”

Actually, you wouldn't need to "make this up," because there is a difference. This is not by any means the sole example of Barack Obama's economic illiteracy but he manages to make himself sound even smaller and more petty than usual. Kevin Williamson at National Review explains: 

“Outsourcing” happens when a firm contracts out its non-core functions to other vendors, e.g., a hotel decides to hire a cleaning service rather than keep maids on the hotel payroll. To take an extreme but illustrative case, consider that the firms that provide car-driving services do not manufacture their own automobiles or stitch their drivers’ uniforms, even though doing so would “create jobs.” They outsource those tasks to GM or Ford and to whomever makes their uniforms. Likewise, their communication systems are outsourced to Apple or Motorola or RIM.

But at least they should “buy American,” right? GM is an “American” company building “American” cars, but it too outsources many of its needs, sometimes to other U.S.-based companies, sometimes to companies overseas. Moving facilities overseas is what “offshoring” means; it is not synonymous with “outsourcing.” GM has decided that it can build cars without manufacturing brake pads or tires, much less manufacturing steel or rubber, and its production partners include facilities, workers, and investors from around the world. (This is, it should go without saying, a good thing. People who talk mistily about the virtues of “global cooperation” rarely recognize it when they see it.)

The belief that seems to be popular on the left is that the point of offshoring is to take advantage of cheap labor but in Williamson's article he points out that the offshored functions tend to go to high wage countries like Germany and Japan, not Haiti and Rwanda. Williamson:  "That is because low wages are not the goal of offshoring. High productivity is the goal of offshoring. There is a reason that BMW does not move all of its manufacturing operations to India, and patriotism is not it."

Read the whole thing. 

.

Daniel Henninger: A middle class is the result of growth, not its cause.

That is an important point made by Daniel Henninger in yesterday's Wonderland column in the Wall Street Journal in which he asserts that the coming election boils down to one issue: economic growth. Voters need to choose between two economic growth models, Barack Obama's class based growth model or one that actually works; a low-tax, regulatory certainty and no more than absolutely necessary. In other words, as close to a free market as possible.

Go read the whole thing.

.

Fast & Furious: Botched Investigation, Or Something More Sinister?

If you don't know what Operation Fast & Furious or have only recently heard about it, it is probably because you rely on the mainstream media for your news and they have been very studiously ignoring it for over a year. Why would they do that? It isn't because it isn't news. It's because it's news that reflects very badly on their man, Barack Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder.

Bill Whittle's latest Afterburner will bring you up to speed on what it's all about:

.

An Open Letter to "Mr." Obama

The incomparable Vodkapundit has written a letter to our Dear Leader, offering some good advice about what he should do if SCOTUS strikes down the healthcare law:

Mr. Obama, if the Supreme Court does strike down this law, you should get down on both knees and thank them.

And then you ought to stay there a while and beg us all for forgiveness.
 

We’re waiting.

Do go and read the whole thing.

.