No, there is no silver lining to Hurricane Sandy. Only a college-educated economist, taught not to recognize any difference between money velocity and wealth creation, could find some benefit to the massive destruction of valuable assets.
Rather last fall’s cloud, which has recently exposed it’s silver lining to us, is Obama’s re-election.
If Romney had won last fall we would never have learned how little resistance the IRS had to being politically weaponized. The occurrence, exposure and reaction to the IRS scandal will do more to reform the total disaster that is the IRS than anything Romney would have done. I’ve even heard some talk in the media of actually ridding ourselves of this darkness once and for all and switching to a consumption-based, non-invasive tax like the Fair Tax. I think more people will be taking a serious look at that as the IRS scandal unfolds. We would never have had this opportunity if Romney had been elected.
Another benefit of the blessing-in-disguise election is the exposure of the Benghazi fiasco. The American people are about to learn that the Benghazi outpost was not an embassy or a consulate, but rather possibly part of a super secret State Department operation to buy back Stinger missiles that we had given to Al Qaeda when we were assisting them in bringing down Gaddafi. This episode will help make clear the absolute folly of a foreign policy which basically holds that the United States must choose sides and get involved in any conflict that happens anywhere in the world. Even when, as in this case, there are no good guys we still decide who are the least bad bad guys and give them arms. It’s total insanity. Stinger missiles are capable of downing airliners! And there is evidence emerging that the true purpose of the Fast and Furious gun-running episode was to help “our guys” in the Mexican drug gang wars. With Obama in office these scandals are unlikely to go away. Maybe enough of us will learn the truth and pressure Washington to basically mind our own business and stop trying to run the world.
On top of all that, we have learned from the White House’s violation of AP and Fox News that our press freedoms are heading in the direction of Russia’s. Obama’s re-election has permitted us the time to reverse this trend before it’s too late. Again, this would not be in the news if Obama weren’t president.
But the best thing about Obama’s re-election is that a recently elected Romney would be imposing all his favorite ideas on us right now. If you look at the way he ran Massachusetts, I don’t think it would be anything to be excited about. I think I’d prefer a crippled Obama to a powerful Romney.
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