Obama’s Monetary Policy: Stick It to the Middle Class
It’s a rare day when I, a self-confessed macroeconomics ninny, dare to write about anything so weighty as federal monetary policy. My husband of four decades loves to joke that I know nothing about money except how to spend it. (Ha. Ha.)
He fails to mention that I have been the chief financial officer of my household budget for 41 years now — that I have managed to put wholesome, safe meals on our family’s table through some of the most treacherous-to-the-middle-class periods of inflation in American history. Or that I take only cash to purchase nearly 100 items every single week and am never off my cost estimate by more than a few dollars at checkout. These are feats of which I am quite proud. In the process of weekly grocery shopping over four decades, I have become an expert at spotting inflation before my financial-guru husband has the slightest clue what’s around the bend.
I’ve been sounding the hyperinflation alarm for more than a year — to rolling eyes and shrugs, and the all-too-familiar “you just want a raise” discounting tactic. So when I read this little piece in the Wall Street Journal last week, I would have been downright giddy at the validation, if I weren’t so utterly depressed by the reality.
It seems that one heck of a prestigious dude — William Dudley, president of the New York Federal Reserve — decided to have a little tête-à-tête with local consumers, no doubt sensing a need to bolster their confidence in the Fed’s more-fishy-by-the-hour monetary policy.
Mr. Dudley gave a nice PR speech highlighting “improvements” in the economy and the Fed’s “successes.” Then came the questions. One guy had the audacity to hope he could make some sense out of the government’s insistence that inflation remains minimal despite the largest monthly increase in food costs in 36 years — and gas spiking so much that soon the cost of getting to work may exceed one’s wages. Dudley made use of a skill they must have taught him at Berkeley, proceeding to ram his Goldman Sachs resume, along with his Gucci loafer, right through his front teeth:
“Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful,” he replied. “You have to look at the prices of all things.”
To which one truly great American responded: “I can’t eat an iPad.” He might as well have added, “I can’t drive an iPad to work either.” And at the rate grocery and gas prices are rising, by the end of this year, I couldn’t afford that iPad’s monthly service fee even if I had enough discretionary income to purchase the little piece of dazzling technology in the first place.
If you ask me, Ms. typical American middle-class consumer, I would have to say that Mr. Dudley’s current yearly salary of $410,000 in taxpayer money is just a tad inflated as well. That $410,000 of our money is mere chicken-feed to a man of Mr. Dudley’s stature, I’m told. When he was at Goldman Sachs, he was pulling in millions every year. I’m sure he was worth every penny. If inflation really were down in the 2% range on the genuine necessities of life for us little people, then I wouldn’t begrudge the guy his half-million in wages and benefits.
But Dudley’s salary, along with Geithner’s and Bernanke’s and even Obama’s, are all based on lying statistics that mean nothing in the real world where inflation is actually rampant.
ObamaCare alone has caused a nearly 40% hike in insurance premiums for individual policies such as the one my self-employed husband and I have. The Democrats’ save-the-deadbeats credit card law caused an immediate rise in interest rates for us always-pay-on-time consumers to cover the cost of the mandated write-offs.
Right here, in the real world, Obama’s monetary policy is starting to look like it has a bottom line screw-the-middle-class philosophy.
For the president’s information, the most dreaded word in every middle-class household’s budget confab is — all together now — INFLATION. And just because a few golden-boy hotshots in the jet set can somehow ignore the cost of groceries and gas when they do their little on-paper tallies of deceptive figuring does not mean that a real family can get by without taking these vital things into account.
When inflation drives up the cost of food to fuel the little human bodies sitting around the dinner table every night, then the family must get the money from somewhere else in the budget. Otherwise children go hungry. We don’t have money-printing presses in our living rooms.
When inflation drives up the cost of gas — and gas is necessary to get to work and school and all the other places we must go — then that extra money has to come from somewhere else. The yearly vacation, which has been cut down to a couple of days close by, has to go entirely. Or that summer camp we were planning to send the kids to is out. Or the braces will have to go on the credit card whose interest is way above “prime rate.” There isn’t a middle-class family in this entire country who does not live in dread of the I-word.
Inflation stalks like a thief in the night, filling the nightmares of homemakers and breadwinners alike.
Inflation is the invisible beast that steals the long-awaited raise before it has a chance to hit the bank account.
Inflation is the disease that ravages the arduously saved dollars of decades.
Inflation is the bandit that steals from the poor while hardly ever even noticed by the likes of the politicians who guilefully prod its crime spree.
Inflation is the monster who gobbles up the goodies of responsible citizens no matter their station.
So, when Obama and Bernanke and all the Fed gurus like Mr. Dudley put their little heads together and formulate a monetary policy, it would really be nice if they remembered — just once — that while the iPads and the Guccis and the golf clubs they love so much are simply wonderful if they cost a little less, the rest of us do have to worry about the rising cost of our groceries and our gas.
In our world, the necessities of life don’t get paid for with other people’s money.
We in the middle class pay the most taxes and fuel the government engine.
It would be nice if we weren’t told to eat our iPads when we notice that our government has set out to deflate the middle class.
Inflation, the “invisible tax” that John Maynard Keynes once predicted would replace overt taxation as the prime source of government revenue — yes, really; look it up — is largely misunderstood by the lay public. The misunderstanding has been cultivated over decades, to obscure the true nature of our fiat currency.
But Americans can read the papers. And the Internet. And now that precious-metal prices are routinely reported by various sources, they’re aware that their incomes and savings are under attack. And they’re doing what sensible people everywhere and everywhen have done in response.
Don’t assume everything will turn out all right in the end. Protect yourself. Don’t be the last guy to climb aboard the real-wealth wagon. By then you might not be able to afford the fare. (Anyway, he’s usually the first to be tossed off when the wolves start to gain on it.) Verbum sat sapienti.
Redistributing the West’s wealth to the rest of the world who deserve it more.
Funny, when you look at it that way EVERYTHING going on right now makes perfect sense.
Thank you.
BEST piece I’ve read in … I don’t know how long!
I keep telling people if they would only let a gaggle of us coupon-clippers loose on Washington we would be able to reduce Federal spending by 10-20% and no one would feel a thing. Those of us who’ve been busily crafting $2-per-person dinners – with meat!, growing tomatoes in pots on the patio just so we can HAVE an occasional tomato, and are known by name at the local thrift shops (“Uh oh! Here she comes again!”) are truly suffering out here in Realityville.
Frankly, I think it makes much more sense to pay someone like me $400k a year to SAVE the taxpayers’ money than to pay Mr iPad to justify spending. But … what do I know?
Thanks, Kyle-Anne, for addressing my nightmare!
“Frankly, I think it makes much more sense to pay someone like me $400k a year to SAVE the taxpayers’ money ”
You are exactly correct, but your assumption is wrong.
They have NO interest in saving the taxpayers’ money. The opposite is the truth. Their objective is to bust taxpayers. People with money have power. They want 100% of the power. YOU are their enemy and they are determined to break you come hell or high water.
that is it!
they are doing just that. in fact these freaks have always done or tried to take everyone’s money and redistribute it.
they give it to the parasites for now. but even that will end when they get enough control.
The iPad does not have a monthly service fee.
Connectivity for the 3G version ain’t free if you don’t have Wi-Fi.
I enjoyed my iPad with some mustard on a toasted bun. No more service fees or dropped calls.
Excellent article. Academics and government bureaucrats are so out of touch with us folks and our reality, they might as well be living on another planet. (And, if I could send them there, I would. We’d all be better off.)
Look at it this way, there’s only so many lobbyist DC can handle right ??? Let them think & Do as they seem to think is right cause when they start dropping like flies every election cycle there gonna have to do one of 2 things either continue as they are or start listening to the voters who live in reality or join with there predecessors after there 1st term(s) in office are done !!
the true fact is Inflation hit Middle America long ago just that no one believed it was happening, I remember back as early as 2007-2008 Inflation was upon us, I recall going to my local Piggly Wiggly where I use to get 3-4 bags of groceries for a generous $55-$60 I now get 1 brown paper bag of items. I think most people think there still getting the same amount of groceries for their money when they shop at Wal-Mart because Wal-Mart only puts 2 or 3 items in a plastic bag as opposed to 4,5 or 6 items so it’s pure trickery but only the knowledgable would see what’s really happening.
By the time 2016 rolls around the Political landscape will have changed a great deal, because all the Lantimos, Blacks, and White America are gonna have to do one of 2 things as well, and that’s either join forces with the Tea Party, Form their own Party or be as they are currently and not vote like they did in this last election back in November 2010 it’s gonna be a tough choice but it’s one that gonna have to be made and though I know it’s gonna be a hard decision for them but it’s a make or break decision and 2016 is the game changer IMO !!!!
Hell, I don’t know any more about macro-economics that you do, but am willing to look at the figures. You make the point how the middle class has struggled to stay afloat the last couple decades, which is familiar Democrat boiler-plate, usually accompanied by the meme of 10% of the people making almost all the money (or is it scooping up the new money?) and the top 1% getting the lion’s share of that. Can we get some solid numbers to prove or disprove that claim?
To me, the many trillion dollar question is if taxing the top 1% at a significantly higher rate would “kill” the economy, as opposed to lowering the deficit. My position is 4-4-4. We have to raise taxes 4% on the top 1%, cut spending 4%, and raise taxes on pensions over $50,000 4%.
There is no question that inflation of food and gas has skyrocketed, but the top 10% tend not to care about inflation all that much. Some inflation to lower the value of the debt probably has to take place, but salaries are supposed to get inflated too to make that work.
Part of the problem is that both ipad one and two are made in China. We love the (relatively) low price, but that makes for thousands of American workers, NOT working. NOBODY that I know of has much of an answer for this. Not Obama, not Palin, probably not even Ryan. If Ryan ran on cutting 4%, but also raising taxes 4%, then I would vote for him, but no one dares to plow this middle ground.
Look at it this way: Obama has given the Brazilians the right to deep water drilling for oil in the Gulf while keeping many Americans from that job, and has declared that he wants to buy Brazilian oil while he refuses to use America’s own oil.
Americans don’t matter to Obama and whether they can put food on the table – he just flies in a pizza maker from Texas when he feels like it.
a parasite speaks ..well done dwrong !
“If Ryan ran on cutting 4%, but also raising taxes 4%, then I would vote for him, but no one dares to plow this middle ground.”
Why not just cut 8% instead? Increasing taxes on a people already struggling to make ends meet will just make a bad situation that much worse.
Because we are also trying to reduce the deficit. If we reduce spending 4% and reduce taxes 8%, have we gained or lost ground?
Ms Shiver is correct. May I add my taxes have gone up as well as the cost of staples since Mr. Obama has been in office.
Look, math is hard so they have to properly pose the problem. Unfortunately, in the public policy arena, they pose the problem to avoid unsightly real world effects, such as doing climate modeling with an infinite atmosphere to do away with that irritating tendency for heat to radiate into space.
Or in the inflation calculation, where it was realized that the widely variable and dramatically changing food, healthcare and fuel was overwhelming manufactured goods obscuring the changes important for industrial policy. So you see, due to productivity increases and quality advancements, inflation is low even as manufacturing wages have increased because the increased wages were offset by the reduction in employment in the sector.
But if we go throwing this food, healthcare, and fuel into the mix, these subtle changes elsewhere will be overwhelmed and hidden. Not to mention, such a focus will highlight policy driven spiraling of the prices in these areas, which could cause a backlash.
Not to mention, if official inflation is high, that will by law cause an increase in entitlement payments which will render all the magical calculations moot since they are predicated on a low cost of living.
you spot on in your assumption that if inflation were to really spike on paper that would mean entitlements would also be higher, which is probably the main reason they don’t take into account the rising cost of Gas, and Energy which if factored in the mix of all other numbers would definitely prove to these idiots in office that Inflation was indeed happening. I will also say that I hadnt thought of it that way as you did that entitlements would increase good point on your point but I’m sure the word will get around or those in the Beltway will have to find a way to decrease the inflation some to ease people’s pocket books at least for those living on SS or other entitlements !!
Not to mention, if official inflation is high, that will by law cause an increase in entitlement payments which will render all the magical calculations moot since they are predicated on a low cost of living.
Also, if inflation increases beyond a certain threshold, there would be pressure to increase interest rates. That would seriously drive up the cost of servicing our spiraling national debt.
Excellent article! I agree that the elites in D.C. and our Lord and Master wannabe OBama do not feel inflation the way the masses do.
The problem is that they are so arrogant in their positions that it really doesn’t matter if inflation is rampant. After all, they feel the elites are SUPPOSED to have it better than the great unwashed. What did I, in the muck and mire of the middle class, do to deserve the piece of the pie that Obama has? I don’t deserve good money because I merely drive a truck and that’s not important.
What’s important, apparently, is that Obama can fly to Rio on my money while war breaks out in Libya. Now shut up, David, and watch some more Charlie Sheen antics.
Great article. Like you, I am the one that goes to the grocery store and pride myself on gettting the best for the least in the shortest amount of time. It’s all in getting the right check out clerk. I’ve been going nuts for the past 12-15 months about this and when I heard that gas and food aren’t calculated in inflation I contimplated violence. How dare they, comes to mind, along with stuttering and sputtering. I liked the “I can’t eat an I-Pad” comment and I think it should be a much repeated line for any elections, but I would have liked to have said, “So in other words, with respect to the middle class problem with food inflation, the government’s comment is Let’em Eat Cake.” Right now, I wish I had the courage of John Fries.
What. She. Said.
55555
Leave it to a woman to notice the snarling beast in the supermarket! And then . . . AND THEN have the audacity to say something about it. No Bread! Let them eat iPads!!!
Obama simply wants to become Americas first Fascist Dictator.
Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson beat him to it.
I think the Obama ‘administration’ is using the iPad, Xoom, Eee Pad, etc. as their “jobs created” metric; Their owners can tele-commute to a new job while eating at the nearest fast food kitchen.
With maids and chauffeurs, these czars, (“mental agoraphobics”) never have to be exposed to the harshness of the real world.
How are “Hope and Change” working out for you, who live in the United States? Or is it, ” I hope you don’t mind the chains?”
When will you gringos understand what we who live, in Honduras, have been telling you for over a year? Obama is a communist who is attempting to destroy your personal freedom, your constitution, and your way of life. He who controls what we eat, where we drive, and what we are allowed to say, controls us.
Please join us, as we pray for national and international spiritual transformation. “Lord let it begin in me.”
bobbyhonduras@yahoo.com
As bad as this is for the middle class the real losers are the elderly. Understating the inflation rate is a subtle way to cut Social Security benefits without getting in a loud political row. Its also a way to devalue the debt that seems to be spiraling out of control. A bonus for the glassy-eyed fanatics of the Obama Administration is that higher gas prices will discourage the use of the Evil Auto. When our bonds become so undervalued at one or two percent that they are shunned by investors the Fed will have to chase its own tail by raising rates, a nightmare in a weak economy, or by printing money, an even worse nightmare because hyper-inflation will destroy the savings and retirement plans of the entire middle class. Even pensions that are indexed to inflation are only adjusted up once a year. If the real rate of inflation is 30% a month, like in Chavez’ Venezuela and every other country unfortunate enough to have a socialist government fully staffed with dishonest geniuses like ours, and is understated to be 15% those fat pensions will be completely worthless. So the choice is stark; allow interest rates to be set by the market not the Fed and have a huge downturn or print oceans of money and have it become worthless. Hope and Change.
It’s a two-pronged war, part 1 on the “out of favor” middle class, and part 2 on senior citizens; and inflation is just a small part of it.
We are in the midst of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history. The lobster has been boiling since Sept 2008 and people are just beginning to wake up to it, because inflation is about to make the pot overflow.
re “out of favor”, unions and government worker are doing quite well, are they not? As are the fascist’s favorite big businesses; as are the welfare class. It’s the rest who are suffering, and more than the statistics show. The 23% decline in wealth that has recently been published is obviously much greater than that because the fascists three favored groups aren’t down, they are UP. 35% is more like it for normal Americans.
But that pales compared to the massive assault on senior citizens. Consider:
- Part 1: 50% of their life savings were trasferred to George Soros and Goldman Sachs in Sept/Oct 2008
- Part 2: since then they have been collectind, on average, 3/10th of 1% interest on their remaining savings. Meanwhile, GS1 and GS2 have made 90% in the stock market, which, of course, seniors, with savings depleted by 1/2 can no longer risk being in.
- Part 3: because government engineered inflation has been “0%” (lol) in 2009 and 2010, Social Security has received no cola changes. Surprisingly, medicre payments and copays have continued to “skyrocket”
- Part 4: it is impossible for a senior citizen to find a job
- Part 5: inflation has been high for seniors because the system that claims 0% is rigged. It includes electonics (seniors can’t affort ipads), and housing (people with paid-off houses get no benefit from low mortgage rates or declining home prices). The things seniors MUST buy have “skyrocketed”: food (up 25%+ since Nov 2008), gasoline (up 75%+ since Nov 2008), medical services (up substantially since Nov 2008), utilities (up at least 25% since Nov 2008).
- Part 6: Obamacare. “skyrocket” is about to be redefined
It’s the greatest non-violent attack on a class of citizens in human history.
yes ..and really nothing is being done to stop it. with the exception of these blogs, Glenn Beck and a precious few others.
but so far only words. the republicans (not too many conservatives there) do nothing.
A family which drives 15,000 miles a year at 25 miles per gallon will buy 600 gallons of gasoline that year. Hence, if the price of the gas goes up a dollar a gallon, they must reduce their discretionary spending by $600. What costs $600? On Amazon.com, you can buy an I-Pad2 for $610. The idiocy of William “Let Them Eat IPads” Dudley arguing that inflation is actually mild because IPads are better and cheaper, when the same gasoline and groceries cost more, is obvious to anybody who buys the latter two. It merely inflates (pun intended) his egregious comment that he fails to realize that when people’s fixed expenses go up, such as fuel and groceries, they cannot afford discretionary expenses…such as IPads. Did this guy ever take a course in economics?
Thank you for writing this article. I think many people are starting to realize we are already in an inflationary period and that the government statistics are fabricated.
My home insurance has been going up 10% per year over the last few years after only going up about 3-4 % per year for many years before that.
Our electric bill, which for many years had increased slowly, has gone up at about an 8-10 % clip per year over the past 5 years or so.
Healthcare coverage costs… everyone knows about that. Both the cost and the employee contribution go up significantly every year.
I think we have experienced significant inflation for the past 4-6 years and have been lulled into thinking it was not happening by doctored government statistics.
Bernanke plops $600 bil in the monetary system and walks away, all for a miserable short term hype. It pushed the stock market up, inflation works there too. But substantial, real growth isn’t measured only in the price index which interacts with other criteria. Obama is happy though, it bought him some more time.
Ms. Shiver, even the cost of making money; the cotton fiber stuff which so easily slips through our hands for the most basic needs (as well as the unneeded Ipad or IPad2), is exponentially increasing.
Yet Big Ben and company continue printing the stuff it like it’s, well, not theirs. As if they’re INVITING inflation.
My family’s solution: Double down on our regular duties as investors/capitalist pigs and make attempts/strides as entrepeneurs as well.
It’s an odd though exciting attempt in unchartered waters by a self-annointed science geek to wade..
The Bretton woods agreement after WW2 set the guidelines for major currencies to maintain their value, so trading between nations could operate in a structured manner.
President Nixon broke the agreement, placed the US on a Petro Dollar system which allows the Federal Reserve to print as much money as they wish, anytime they wish without regard. The US dollar became a Fiat Currency in 1973, and has lost 90% of its value since 1973. It will continue to lose value at faster rates, with severe and fatal pressure in about 2 years.
It is highly important to set aside whatever possible into hard assets, and get out of mainstream Banking ( BofA, HSBC, etc) and into a Secure Private bank. Private Banks operate at 100% insurance for their depositors, the FDIC will not be able to sustain the next wave of bank failures, which will occur in 2-3 years.
President Obama had a tough job, but instead of turning the ship he increased speed.
Thank you, Kyle-Anne!
I’ve been noticing (and commenting) on the same daunting increase in the everyday goods my household consumes, with the same reaction: rolled eyes, shrugged shoulders, don’t-be-an-alarmist remarks.
Yet, during just the 2-year recession period I’ve watched many grocery and household staples nearly double in price. Our coffee consumption is down, but the dollars we spend on coffee continue to rise. We’re rapidly becoming functional vegetarians – meat is too expensive to put on the menu. Meanwhile, the cost of fresh vegetables and fruits is so high, soon those will be out of reach, too. Our thermostat is set VERY low in winter, VERY high in summer, but utility costs continue to rise. Our gas consumption is down, but gas costs are up. Add in credit card interest rates (yes, we too noticed the immediate increase after the “save-the-deadbeats” debacle), city water, insurance, and escalating city, county and state tax property and sales taxes. To cap it off, our modest home is worth less than before and the value continues to drop.
That’s just the household. My small business is experiencing the same dramatic increase in basic (repeat: BASIC) operating costs, from rent to fuel, utilities, paper and crucial technology upgrades. This holds true for every small/micro-business I know.
Granted, my heart feels all tingly (could that be a heart attack? I can’t afford a heart attack!) knowing I’m paying for my neighbor’s lapsed mortgage, free cell phones for welfare folks, and broadband access to the remotest regions. This crosses my mind as I stand in line watching a welfare family chat on that “free” cell phone and swipe their foodstamp card using my money to buy things I can’t afford.
The entitled poor and delusional elites are grinding we, the “middles” (middle class, middle country) into powder.
Meanwhile the experts crow there’s little to no inflation. Whew, I feel so relieved! Oh, wait … what’s that saying?
If their lips are moving, they’re lying.
for obama ..that is the plan. the goal is to screw the middle class.
he is achieving his goal thanks to the media and democratic party (all complicit in the crime of treason against the USA)
Obviously inflation is creeping up. Do you remember after Vietnam, when inflation was really bad? Whose treason was that? Apparently for you, talking about treason is the equivalent of burping and farting.
Agree entirely, Dwight. Bad economic policy is not treason and bile is not an economic or political argument.
As a matter of fact, Dwight, that was Lyndon Johnson’s doing. In 1968 he changed the statutory definition of the dollar from $35.00 per ounce of gold to $42.25 per ounce of gold. But before that, from the Tonkin Incident onward, he escalated the American presence until, by the time he left office, the entire United States Army had passed through Vietnam.
Spending on the Vietnam war, by U.S. fiscal year:
1965: $0.1 billion
1966: $5.8 billion
1967: $18.0 billion
1968: $20.1 billion
1969: $28.8 billion (the last LBJ budget)
1970: $23.1 billion
1971: $15.3 billion (est.)
(Source)
So as we can see, the Nixon Administration embarked on a program of severe cost-cutting of the war effort, as Nixon was committed to ending it as swiftly as possible – a goal entirely consistent with his 1973 ending of military conscription, which he had promised to do in both his election campaigns.
In parallel with that, the LBJ years saw a rapid expansion of the federal government:
Federal Outlays by year:
1964: $118.6 billion ($5.9B deficit)
1965: $118.4 billion ($1.6B deficit)
1966: $134.7 billion ($3.8B deficit)
1967: $158.3 billion ($8.7B deficit)
1968: $178.8 billion ($25.2B deficit)
1969: $184.5 billion ($3.2B surplus (glory be to God!))
(Source: Historical Statistics of the United States, Series Y 339-342: Summary of Federal Government Finances, 1929 to 1970)
Deficits, which must be funded by the sale of T-bills, are the engine of inflation. To make a market for new T-bills, the Federal Reserve Bank buys T-bills already held in private hands, by creating new money with which to buy them. So LBJ’s years in power, proportionately to his times and the revenues of the United States in those years, were as inflationary as any before the regime of Barack Hussein Obama.
You see, it’s always best to have the facts at your command. Now, would you prefer to change the subject, spit at my sources, or call me a racist?
hahahahhaha
that inflation was Jimminy cricket Carter’s ..and yes I remember.
amazing that a democrat/parasite doesn’t get the fact that their “people” in government are screwing them too.
what do you think anyone middle class will benefit from any of the obama policies.
what will you get for these policies ..green power you cannot afford. or are you holding out for the job of union thug. …how about one of the prison guards for the rehabilitation centers.
will you be one of the jailers dwrong ?
“…how about one of the prison guards for the rehabilitation centers.” Yes indeed, that’s correct.
D-White is/was a high school English teacher. Union meat too.
Love that 4-4-4 rap. Your tax dollars at work –
For Pick It Fence BUT, for the Ping Pong Tongue, for a Birkenstocked Red Pencil Neck. All in the name of, well, just because. The Faculty Lounge Lizard Logic digs tweed, and tax money, and it will feed until bursting. And then it asks for answers on how you will clean up 4 it.
Anyway they already expect you
To all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations.
“For Pick It Fence BUT, for the Ping Pong Tongue, for a Birkenstocked Red Pencil Neck. All in the name of, well, just because. The Faculty Lounge Lizard Logic digs tweed,”
And so’s my mother, I’m sure.
Do you remember the scene in Henry IV, probably Pt I, maybe II, where Falstaff, who really does not have much of an argument, sputters through a page or two of NAMES he calls Hal? Hal has more than a few things that Falstaff doesn’t, including a case. You and the General have a great routine here. “Treason” hurled and names called.
Porretto lays out numbers for LBJ’s leading us into inflation. No argument here, as I happen to agree, but I am not flinging “traitor” out there.
OOOOOOOOFT; snort, choke!
Good stuff, man!
Uh huh. Forgot that the USA is a “democratic Republic”?
We must assume that politicians in Washington AND the States do is what the citizens want done. They, meaning the middle class, have elected representatives in all political parties within the past half century to do precisely what they have done. And are now doing in spades. Politicians behaviours ar merely extension of what they have been doing. How did this happen if the middle class doesn’t agree with it?
The government is in their hands as in no other country in the world or in history. Do we suppose American citizens don’t care they are exceptional in this. Can American citizens be so obtuse, so lazy, so hateful and envious of one another, so uncaring of their own and their childrens’unto the fourth generation lives they have allowed their politicians these behaviours? AS IN NO OTHER SOCIETY IN HISTORY OR IN THE WORLD TODAY, is the citizenship RESPONSIBLE for the people they choose to “represent” them.
Americans ARE NOT RULED except by their own choices. In choosing those who would rule them, wherever, whomever for whatever, we must assume they dislike their independence to decide their individual and national destinies.
During the past half century beginning with the deliberately destructive manouevres they named the Vietnam War (although never declared as war by Congress in remission of their duties ) professional politicians have made no secret of developing their “representation” into a royal claque.
Forgoing the job as “servant of the People”. The owners of the house, the citizens, have permitted their representatives’ overstepping the contracted positions but encouraged them by electing them again and again. ALWAYS with their hands out for the bribes provided/to be paid from OTHER PEOPLES LIVES. Fancifully named pork and welfare. With NO RESTRAINTS on demands of the politicians providing and their clients receiving the bribes.
The middle class paying up with little, or no protests as class. And so, self government by representation has corrupted into a national ethos of “what’s in it for me”.
Politicians have used DIVIDE AND CONQUER dramatised in the so-called anti- war protests by the “elite” military draft exempt “best and brightest”. Beginning in the “revolution of the 1960s”. DIVIDE AND CONQUER : Vietnam in which citizens dishonoured themselves by their treatment of those young men not exempt from military draft. Behaviours which still stain the nation. And then the race, gender cards and assaults on the family, the future of the nation. To CHANGE America, In the 1960s, beginning with Kennedy the First and Camelot.
Payment for their safety provided by politicians, the “best and brightest” assured the continued control by these illiberal liberals, covert totalitarians and snobs in the literal meaning sine nobilitas, in all civic institutions of the nation.
The middle class forced to awaken to the DREAM of this NEW KENNEDY sees it is indeed their nightmare. This “New Kennedy/Messiah” restrained neither by personal ethics nor lawful guardians of the nation, has another two years to do his damndest, and shows every evidence of doing just that.
The politically adolescent middle class American is now entering the next phase of life : political Adulthood. And must decide how to meet it responsibilities as American Citizen with a capital A.
Inflation and all the other destructive measures being carried out by this crew of communist revolutionaries IS ON PURPOSE! Get the people “angry” enough at the “rich” – and you have a malleable population that will riot and burn and demand the government “do” something about it. There are an awful lot of ignorant people (see Nov 2008) out there who will believe the rhetoric of someone like Richard Trumka, recently seen in Eqypt and Wisconsin rubbing raw the sores of discontent.
As has been said in a few blogs I’ve read recently, revolutions can be carried out by as little as 1% of the population. What percentage of our population is dependent on welfare, union members, teachers, or UNEMPLOYED.
We are in VERY dangerous waters.
Obama’s sly of hand. He goes to Brazil, with one hand he gives them bizillion $ for oil exploration. The blogs spontaneous combust. The other hand has secret talks on Brazil’s sugar and ethanol processes. The US has high tariffs on Sugar and ethanol. Brazil wants those tariff lifted. He throws Iowa under the bus and crams ethanol in our gas tanks. Reducing mileage and outsourcing Iowa jobs.
As i have always said:
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”
“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.”
My ideas and statements have taken glorious root in the democrat party.
I handle much of my elderly mother’s budget. She always was very thrifty, and still is.
5 years ago, her bank account steadily grew. Now it steadily shrinks, with the same sources of income. Changes in the 5 years: she eats less, due to age; got rid of her car and doesn’t drive, because she became blind; possibly uses more heat because she feels colder; possibly more meds, though her basic health is good. Call it a wash, though no car saves a lot.
Due to her thrift, she has assets that will last her lifetime, at least I hope so. What about those who don’t? We will have lots of hungry elderly – the most fragile people in our society.
Dear Dr. Bones,
The selfservative kiddies’ second favorite affix (SELF-, finishin’ two lengths an’ half a nose behind NEO-) is not altogether reliable.
For example, today’s dogmatic slumberware fashion plate would have done much better not to start her scribble with “I, a self-confessed macroeconomics ninny.”
And of course there is no need to say so at the end either, for nobooby competent will have missed it.
In between, ‘twould only be an interruption.
No need for self-confessin’ anywhere, then, despite those lovely first four letters.
“With a Heigh!, / And a Ho!, / And a “Hey Ninny-oh”, / Sweet wingnuts love the spring.”
Outstanding post. I’m one of those seniors who was sure she had enough to retire comfortably on. I would live off my interest and leave the principal to my son.
No longer. I’m already dipping into my capital to pay utilities and food. The most terrifying aspect of this is that it’s just begun. Contemplating where I might be economically in ten years drives me to tears.
I have money. They know it and they want it. I don’t stand a chance.
creeper, don’t fret. I truly believe recent elections, buyer’s remorse of ‘Hope and Change’ is still a fresh wound for many suckers but to mention a couple reasons why lethargy has awoken the informed voter.
I’ll be d amned to see ‘The Greatest Generation’ fleeced.
This is going to hurt those on what are considered “fixed incomes” the most. These are primarily seniors who are out of the work force and have little hope of keeping up, albeit belatedly, considering the lag between the rising costs of goods, services and ultimately everything and the lagging rise in business receipts that allows employers to increase wages. While the present Social Security system includes a controversial cost of living provision, which may be in jeopardy, most private pensions do not. It is therefore likely that rampant inflation is going to lower the standard of living for a lot of old folks unless they’re able to rejoin the work force. I’m sure Obama, Geithner, Dudley, Reid, Pelosi, et al are losing sleep over this; and Chu who is elated at the prospect that gas in America will finally reach EU levels. But, what the heck, rising oil futures and the price of gas has no effect on the cost of anything else……right?
They will lose sleep over it when they realize their plans assume several things that haven’t happened yet, not the least of which is a hike in the debt ceiling. Running out the clock on them can blow the whole thing up. One problem leftists have is that they can’t improvise. If something goes wrong in their plans, they have to pretend it’s all according to plan, because they have no idea what else to do.
Oh? What has Obama done with Afghanistan, Gitmo, drones, extending the tax cuts, and Libya? Is he sticking to the pre-conceived game plan or improvising?
Neither- like I said, leftists don’t know how to improvise. Instead, Obama is caught completely off guard and is unable to do anything competent.
The responsibilities of the Presidency are so complex and unpredictable that all Presidents muddle through, replete now with 24/7 commentary on everything. And all is tinged by partisan support or sniping.
Every President has been accused non-stop of screwing since I started following JFK in the sixties, so it is difficult to sort out when the real screwing up is going on. Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, stagflation, the oil embargo, wage and price controls, Watergate, Iran Hostages, Marine barracks bombing, El Salvador, Arms for Hostages, Kuwait, Monicagate, bursting of hi-tech bubble, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Collapse of Housing Market and US economy all had Presidents hustling and stumbling to do what Presidents do; muddle through, no matter what their campaign promises.
Obama, like almost all of them is a disappointment, but like GWB and all the rest of them, he will muddle on, with the bands on both sides playing loudly, their dramatic, patriotic, and/or traitorous refrains.
And the bands play on. I wonder if they know any Chinese tunes.
I present the following quote as the #1 Republican ad to be run daily during the 2012 campaign.
“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better”.
Barack Obama – 2006
I remember how our economy went south during the Carter Years, wondering how we could ever recover from this administration. Lo and behold, along came Ronald Reagan. Heck, within a week, the hostages were sent packing from Iran after being held for a year and a half during Carter. Little by little America got back on it’s feet again. Then during the Clinton years, middle America started getting into the stock market game and did quite well overall and the fed budget maintained well. Things are looking good now until 9/11. I can’t imagine the cost of that day, but the worst thing about it is that we got an Obama administration because of it. I now fear that the only way to recover from this will be a most disastrous war that no one wants to even imagine.
Excellent article but for one thing, at least in Southern Indiana. Here there no longer is a middle class. There are the upper class, upper lower class and the lower class. Between the price of everything going up, and the job availability going down, the middle class have been pushed into the upper lower class and the upper lower class have been pushed down even farther. Pretty soon it will just be the masters and the slaves.
Some of our politicians and supporting technocrats are playing a game with semantics and funny money, and none of those appear to recognize the danger they are in. You can guess the direction this could take when 20-25% of the citizenry understands completely that they are getting screwed – and not by the usual suspects, i.e., the Chinese, Big Banks, “illegals”, “Wall Street greed” – but by the actions of their “servant”, the government. Their rage will be unquenchable, and some of the more arrogant (or slower to leave town) politicians will wind up getting hanged by torchlight. Don’t take my speculation as gospel – read history.
It is, of course, the large middle class that has made this country exceptional around the world. We believe that everyone can succeed if they try, that they can own a home if they save enough money and find one that suits their income.
Progressive Democrats/socialists/marxists want to do away with the concept of a “successful middle class’ in America. It’s not that they want the entire world to live the “American dream”….they want the American dream to be destroyed…. to bring the entire world including the US to the lowest common denominator. to ‘success’ on any level and bring everyone in the US down to the lowest common denominator
“Spreading the wealth’ will certainly achieve that…..everyone but the ‘elite’ who make up the rules will suffer the same fate. Make no mistake, there will be wealthy people, but they will be a ‘select’ group who have a special ability to know what is right for the rest. ….The USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuala, all stand out as examples of this approach to a ‘perfect society.”
Obama tells us inflation is nonexistent ….. and just like most of his promises, statements, rhetoric we must “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” even if every day experience tells a different story.
“Change’ is beginning to appear as a nightmare for many Americans….. the cost of food, gas and the other necessities of life are becoming outrageous and the lies becoming far more obvious.
We aren’t in a “war”, “the recession is over”, Obamacare will make healthcare better and less costly, and food is not really more expensive.
It truly is time that someone points out “the emperor has no clothes”.
Why do those who cry “Spread the Wealth” tinker with incomes when they get into power instead of going after the wealth?
(Just asking.)
Crying “spread the wealth,” getting elected and then tinkering with incomes sure does rope in the dupes, doesn’t it?
IPads ain’t edible and income ain’t wealth.
Here is a little lesson folks, please understand it well. Inflation is a fancy term for monetary devaluation. A can of beans is a can of beans no matter what its price is. However when you pay more for it than before, your money is worth less. The destruction of the American dollar has been the goal of many hostile foreign governments ie: North Korea, Syria, China, Russia who print fake US bills. Up to one third of the “American” money floating around overseas is counterfeit. What is scary, is that more and more of it is showing up in this country. The surest way to break this country is to destroy its currency.
Why are you all not screaming for Impeachment, and de-fundng the “czars”? Defund also Bernanke and his agency! Call and email your saintly legislators! NOW!
Lies, damn lies and statistics; or why the Dudleys of the world are full of baloney. An recent article at Morningstar.com informs us that the way the CPI is calculated has changed over the years. If we were using the same calculation as was used prior to 1983 (i.e. during the high-inflation Carter years) today’s inflation rate would be 8.9%! The narrative that inflation is LOW today, like so much else, is a FRAUD.
Page 3 of the article talks about the CPI changes although the whole thing is worthwhile: ttp://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/SubmissionsArticle.aspx?submissionid=112967.xml&t1=1301197048
Will an iPad fit in my toaster? I think I’d like to eat it toasted rather then just plain. And a little honey mustard.
Excellent observations! Mr Obama doesn’t care a rat’s rear about the public, inflation, or the country’s finances. He is an idiologue who only wants what is best for Socialism. He doesn’t even know what Capitalism is.
The middle class would be wise to read Carl Marx. He calls for the revolution of the workers and the destruction of the middle class and the small businesmen/women (bourguise). So continue to vote the Demon Party in at your peril. Me, I joined the Tea Party. I have stocked up on food, not kept many assets in savings, loaded up on growth stocks.
“Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful,” he replied. “You have to look at the prices of all things.”
A reply to which the only reasonable conclusion is that the NY Federal Reserve is run by an idiot. The price of iPads and all electronic devices has been dropping for decades and the performance has gone up due to factors that have absolutely nothing to do with Barack Obama or the Federal Reserve’s policies, either one.
When you look at the price of all things and especially those the government can influence that is precisely where inflation does show up. Food, gasoline, medical care, and other basic goods and services are going up largely due this administration and past reckless fiscal policies especially by Democrats since they took control of congress in 2007.
Many years ago in France, when confronted with the unwashed masses in a similar situation, a political figure of note stated that if the rabble were hungry, “they could eat cake….”
I submit that the cake of that time tastes very much like a modern iPad2.
It’s Enough to Make You Cynical!
Keeping track of current events is a thankless, annoying, infuriating endeavor, not to mention that it’s not good for the hypertensive.
Just a smattering of news items on a single day reveals such heights of government hypocrisy, mismanagement, and manipulation and such blatant idiocy that it’s a challenge not to think our nation has gone totally bonkers.
For example, going green is good and in, right? We’re lectured daily if not by the president then by minions under his command and by state and local greens that we must at all costs all do our bit to save energy. Use mercury-laden cfc lightbulbs, risk life and limb by bicycling to work, keep our homes at temperatures barely high enough to prevent frostbite in our living rooms, flush toilets that don’t flush, etc. etc. etc.
However, proving once again that it’s not easy being green, after our leader emphatically announced this week that, “I’m directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015. Not 50 percent, not 75 percent–100 percent of our vehicles,” we learn that all vehicles are equal but that some vehicles are more equal than others.
Exempt from Obama’s mandates are his limousines, cars in his motorcades, law enforcement, and security vehicles: http://bit.ly/hkSavI
Needless to say, the government has its reasons, chief of which although unannounced is that it can do what it thinks best. The rest of us can do what we’re told to do.
Speaking of the rest of us, there are far fewer of the rest of us than ever before, that is, more Americans are employed by various governmental entities than in manufacturing, construction, farming, fishing, mining and utilities–combined! . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4045)
Since then, I have been feasting on piping hot, delicious
home cooked pizzas, which I have eaten whilst sitting on the beach at night.
Place sliced tomatoes and Arugula on top of the Mozzarella.
It didn’t help that every pizza recipe I saw online would mention the dreaded “bread machine.