Israelis complain about housing prices, the sick leftists at the NYTimes have a premature ejaculation

The NYTimes is an ugly paper. People who think the left can offer changes in living standards are not about to commit suicide. But it is telling that the Times is looking to obscure their intentions already. Asking the government to take power away is a poor strategy for increasing the wealth for more people... but the NYTimes acts like there is blood in the water.

The sharks are getting ready to circle with labels like, "Peace" and warnings of doom if the Jews don't cater to their enemies whims. the worst thing about Leftists, Progressives and Socialists is that they don't know a thing about Revolution, they only understand violence. If you find a society with a deep schism between the poor and rich, chances are you will find the rich in bed with government and at the same time misleading the people into giving the government greater control. ; If you care about people then you need to aggressively investigate through the mechanisms of law and if the government bullies because you are putting your nose in the right place then stick to your GUNS!

and here is the analysis from within israel...

The Israeli economy has improved greatly under free-market reforms, for which PM Bibi Netanyahu, especially in his stint some years ago as finance minister, is largely responsible. The Israeli economy's current low unemployment, low inflation, strong rate of growth, and overall stability amid the economic storm of recent years are the envy of much of the Western world.

At the same time certain problems remain, particularly prices for many commodities that are higher or much higher than in other Western countries generally. The solution is, of course, continued free-market reforms that will introduce further competition and break the power of the remaining cartels, monopolies, and capital concentrations.

Meanwhile in the last few weeks a few Tel Aviv radical leftists, actually communists--with the crucial cooperation of the lefty media--have whipped up a public storm of protest that is largely unfairly focused on the current government and largely driven by ignorance and populism.

Caroline Glick outlines this problematic development and connects it with other cases since the '90s where the Israeli media have manipulated the populace--lacking other, corrective information--into severe blunders. Formerly it was in the security sphere, with Israeli security essentially destroyed for a time and still seriously damaged; now they're starting in on the economy. Glick warns:

The only solution to this situation is competition. Israel’s media market is able to operate as a closed guild because government regulations on media licenses have placed the same people destroying our discourse in charge of deciding who gets a broadcast license and what broadcasters can broadcast.

This has to end. Just as Israel’s economic success owes to the government’s withdrawal from the markets, so Israel’s ability to have a rational, truthful, fact-based public debate is entirely dependent on a government initiative to deregulate the media.

But it better act fast. For if the government does not act quickly, as we see today, the media guild will manipulate the uninformed public that our best bet is to destroy our prosperity, just as they convinced us before to destroy our security. via pdavidhornik.typepad.com

The limited number of government licenses to broadcast is part of the demise of the same government. I'm not an insider here, but it makes a lot of sense.

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