I do not understand at all this going into debt for almost another trillion dollars, and then immediately promising to balance the budget soon (like blowing off your foot near an emergency room), or how “stimulate” differs from “borrow”, or why the more noble victim is the one who sought to borrow too much for too much house and then defaulted, rather than he who chose to borrow less for less house and paid his mortgage on time each month and now subsidizes the less responsible. (The former apparently will still have the larger house, the latter the smaller.)
Some other perverse thoughts.
1) If one were, say, to have $400,000 in cash in a passbook account at either Citibank or Bank of America (both about broke), and also separately owed them $150,000 on a home mortgage; and if they went under, or had to recapitalize and then informed one that only the first $250,000 of the passbook was covered under FDIC (you laugh? But why have such deposit insurance limits, if all money in all savings accounts were really to be covered?), and thus admitted that they had lost one’s balance of $150,000 that exceeded federal insurance, could one then just say, “No problem, you canceled what you owed me, so likewise I just cancelled what I owe you on the house and we will call it even?”
2) If we put salary caps on CEOs whose companies beg for federal hand-outs (I have no objection to this), why not do the same for those who want mortgage bail-outs? If the government rescues their loans (through reduced principle or interest or both), then why can it not say that if the house is ever sold at a profit over the renegotiated and readjusted debt, the government is entitled to at least half the ensuing profits?
Obama just wined and dined a bunch of millionaire journalists at the White House with the best of the best food. Katie Couric made the remark that she just loved these special dinners. I think these journalists should pay for themselves or have their news organizations reimburse the taxpayer.
This isn’t right while the rest of us have to make sacrifices so that Katie can have yet another serving of taxpayer lobster.
Here is another perverse thought: The joint session of congress applauding more campaign promises. Pelosi doing her share as a cheerleader. Obama in his best voice and pointing finger demonstrating ‘promise-aholic’ skills. Congress’s final ovation sounding like a den of thieves celebrating their new booty. What the hell, steal a trillion, give back a billion and ready up for the next election cycle. Put Biden in charge of protecting our investments for the shovel ready projects. Which 8% of Americans give their approval ratings to congress?
Bread and Circus – title of Doc’s next book..?
Axiom: You cannot pay down debt by spending whatever you want and paying a set percentage of your income against the debt tally.
Try it with your own finances if you don’t believe this.
Until we get on an amortization schedule with the national debt, we won’t get it under control. And as everyone with a credit card knows, you cannot amortize until you STOP THE SPENDING.
As for Countrywide, does everyone understand what its mismanagement issues were? It was THE most heavily leveraged institution in the “fair lending” commitments made by banks under the Community Reinvestment Act. Its partnership with ACORN to administer subprime loans was held up as the model for fair-lending-minded banks. (Other banks heavily committed to CRA “fair lending” include last fall’s big failures IndyMac and Washington Mutual, and of course Citibank, target of the spectacular ACORN fair lending lawsuit in which Obama was on ACORN’s legal team.)
You can verify all these things with a quick web search. Here are some links for further reading:
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?status=article&id=312766781716725&secid=1501
http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html
http://mises.org/story/2963
Countrywide was “in” with Congress because it was doing exactly what the Democrats in Congress wanted it to do: make “fair lending” loans in partnership with the nation’s biggest community activist organization. That is also the reason it failed. Building your financial house on bad paper isn’t sustainable, no matter how much politics tries to pretend it is.
Professor,
Thank you. As always, your post begs questions that the real victims must get answered. I would only add that the perps you name get to retire at full pension, along with 100% healthcare coverage and gov’t protection; while they’ve just awarded themselves a $17K annual raise in salary and $93K in additional “petty cash.” Each. Which kind of stretches the concept of petty, no? Cash that needn’t be accounted for or taxed.
Their insulation and lack of fear of retribution imbues these looters with the “last man standing” mindset; ie, self-imposed absolution and eternal immunity, enacted into law. Hell, now they can just be blatently criminal about their selling absolutions scams. Alinsky’s strategy writ large.
25 years since 1984. Just earlier, in late 1983, we published “A Nation at Risk,” the Reagan admin’s assessment of the US education system. I recall this:
If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre
educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. Moreover, we have dismantled essential support systems which helped
make those gains possible. We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking,
unilateral educational disarmament. bolding mine. Don’t say we weren’t warned.
If one substitutes “sustaining liberty” for “education,” it describes our current political situation, no? Then replace “liberty” with your conservative principle of choice.
The tea party hue and cry is falling on stone deaf ears, just as it did back when we earnestly wanted to improve education. The incumbents don’t care, or have to.
In combination, your insightful questions beg another: Since all this cannot end well, where do we go? Our options evaporate apace, and while we dither the infestation inexorably matasticizes.
I look at this as a systems engineer, and I see what we have here is a sophisticated design, whereby no expense will be spared to assemble the appartus that facilitates boiling all the frogs, at will.
It’s not like Orwell wasn’t perfectly clear, sixty years ago.
Evidently, paying off constituents is just as, if not more rewarding than paying investors dividends. Murtha’s recent opponent had too great a row to hoe.
When Reagan was president, the spending went so high I never thought the country could survive it. Leaving a huge debt wasn’t one of Clinton’s many problems.
So I reassured my liberal family that since we lived through the Reagan era spending, we would make it through the Bush era spending.
So would I be hypocritical to condemn this new additional spending binge? We only know which straw after we break the back of the camel.
I’m just against ACORN, the Harvest Mouse, STD prevention and many many other specific recipients. And now Gaza? It’s nuts.
do not understand at all this going into debt…
That makes two of us.
And politicians become worse than the CEOs they caricature. Much worse.
I prefer a more direct approach.
Tie Drooling Barney Franks and Contemptable Chris Dodd together and throw them in a rat infested prison, in one of their favorite countries, say, Venezuala.
How can you support pay caps for CEOs? When you cap talent, the talent will flee. This is essentially a price control that will hurt everyone. Capping pay may make us feel righteous for a day or two, but ultimately it will lead to poor management of tax assisted corporations. That is not beneficial for anyone.
Thoughts?
When the forlorn renewal of the social contract against fraud turns into “perverse” justice, can any example suggested here not lead down the road to revenge?
America’s original social contract no longer binds when a toxic culture dissolves the restraint of personal accountability, when our traditional value of self-determination now means self-indulgence.
As power corrupts the pinnacle of government in Washington its influence spreads lower and lower like venom dripping from the predatory fangs of common thugs.
After four years of vengeful payback, of sticking it to us, of spreading our property to them, who will forbear from getting even in return?
The change our historic first Islamic apostate president will have accomplished will be to have shifted the majority of Americans, from our tradition of forgiveness to a culture of revenge.
He is taking us from an enlightened society into the darkest nature of primitive man.
After hearing him lsat night I realize that we are in a third bubble: First high tech, then real estate, now its the “Obama Bubble”, and when that bubble breaks, there will be no bail out.
Earlier this evening for the first time I listened to Tim Geithner on the “News Hour with Jim Leher”. The Treasury secretary was unconvincing. If he was a bank officer, I would close my account.
I find this very humbling. My wife is from the Philippines and I used to joke about getting the government you deserve while pointing to the corruption and self interested policies that are normal there. By just about any measure I can think of, we are becoming significantly worse. At least there you find rational thought and consistency even if you do not agree with the perspective. As Dr. Hanson points out, we have lost or are losing any semblance of rationality and are throwing traditional values overboard for…………..what?
Perverse indeed, almost pornographic.
A week or someone said never waste a good crisis, as in never waste a good f…(?)
(Many years ago someone said it’s worse than a crime, its a mistake – that how I view The Stimulus.)
Correction:
A week or so ago…
How about capping Congressional salaries at U.S. median income? Apply the same logic as when capping corporate executives and provide our legislators an incentive to improve rather than loot the economy.
11. Will: re capping pay will cause talent to flee. I completely agree. We can assume one of two things about the administration: either they know it or they don’t. If they don’t know it then a capping is “excusable” due to incompetence. On the other hand, if they do know it, what then? It makes one wonder what they’re up to as it would be a deliberate attempt to drive the talent away.
The less talented are easier to control.
“Talent” corrupted by greed can flee if they wish, assuming they can find a place that still requires their services. The recession is global.
In the financial sector, a good argument has been made that the “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street were not just greedy. They were downright stupid to boot. And, since they lacked the courage — and the common decency — to throw themselves out the window, ending their misery and providing solace and entertainment for the people they’d ruined, I say let them grovel for their government guaranteed chump change. Reap what you sow.
It would be obscene for the government to subsidize inflated salaries for managers in other failed companies, as well. They have also failed. This may turn out to be a good “natural experiment” for the managerial class. Will they now work as hard to throw off the government yoke as they once did for their precious benefits and perks? I guess we’ll see.
Sometimes a crisis brings out the best in people. Sometimes it just shows the crisis is the people.
If the stimulus package is such a great idea, why don’t they pass a similar bill every few months?
Also, read Wikipedia’s description of “Austrian Economics” – it’s an eye-opener.
12. Charles Gordon
“darkest nature of primitive man”
Heaven help us if the right wing of our country mimics the behavior of the left from the late 60′s which has been characterized by primitive yelling, symbolic and actual destruction, and a wish for anarchy or communism.
Providing there is no violence or major constraint toward citizens from the current administration, cool heads should rule the loyal opposition.
What’s weird is this “Give me market failure or give me death” crap that’s floating around. Are you going to a “Tea Party,” Hanson? Will you wear all black?
I thought everyone might enjoy a little levity in the midst of all the bending over the taxpayer is doing right now.
This video was posted on Michele Malkin’s site and it’s so true and sad it’s funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hrnbhIHDY
….at least somebody has the balls to tell it like it is, I mean, you don’t get much more truthful than tearing up money and throwing it at Tim Geithner’s feet.
Interesting words . The word perverse is defined as deviancy and corruption . Turning away from truth and the willfull pursuit of the abnormal. These are the people and plan of the Democratic Party ,perverts and corrupter’s.
Their secret desire is the destruction of order. That is the power of perversion to pursue ones own destruction .
What’s truly perverse about this recession is that it allows the very people in government (Reid, Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, et. al.) who helped facilitate its development to garner even more power and influence over our political system. I don’t understand the history of the Great Depression well, but you might speculate whether this conflict of interest, which also seems to have existed during the 30′s, was not a cause for why that economic downturn lasted so long.
And, perhaps our Reid/Pelosi puppet president, Barack Obama, is looking forward to three terms in office. In that case, don’t bank on an economic recovery anytime soon.
Have a look at this:
http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/BarbaraHollingsworth/ACORN-LaRaza-get-double-dips-of-pork-barrel-in-stimulus-omnibus-spending-bills-40311877.html
Note that as Obama and the democrats move to improve health care in the US, government employees will be exempt from the “improvements.” Government unions will insist that the elite coverage they enjoy today will be grandfathered in.
Someone please explain to me why few if any on this board had even a single critical thing to say about the unaccountable trillions of dollars we have spent on the War in Iraq, but now all of you folks who were previously silent on that cost now have a million uninformed complaints and rants about how spending a similar amount of money on American infrastructure is “socialism” and “generational theft”. Are you really making the argument that using American tax dollars to wage war against a country that never attacked us is “patriotic” and “spreading democracy”, but that aiding our own countrymen is anti-American theft? Because it seems to me that the only real metric you folks seem to follow is Republican spending a trillion = patriotic; Democrat spending a lot of money = socialism.
It would be a lot easier to believe that you genuinely care about our economy and American working people if you weren’t so hypocritical.
#27 mongoose . . . Righto you are, Mongoose, in offering that killer link. Thanks.
Here’s my favorite line from that article . . . “Democrats have clearly not eliminated the “culture of corruption” rampant on Capitol Hill, just changed the names of the beneficiaries.”
Change? As if.
When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Obama’s instincts are to get a bigger shovel and dig faster. And as someone above said, if a trillion bucks in new debt is a good idea, why not just make it two trillion to cut the recovery time in half? Or four trillion and we’d be on easy street by the end of spring.
What amazes me is that a majority of Americans obviously believe that our own government, by following the same principles and methods which caused mismanaged corporations to require a bail out, is a positive plan for success.
Forget capital – we’ll just use credit to sustain ourselves and everything will be okay.
I’m just wondering who will bail out us taxpayers who followed all the rules and are still getting hammered.
I can only speak for me, but I can’t row for too many more before I throw the oar in and join the sightseers for the ride to parts unknown.
21.Jay Block
Re the Austrian School tradition, also see Ludwig von Mises Institute
Various Email Services and author RSS feeds are available there too.
1. Bella Mia Your observation that “this isn’t right” stopped me for a moment…
You are right, of course. A surge of indignation within me spoke agreement.
Then I remembered. Obama is now the captain of the ship. It doesn’t matter what is “right”. It truly, truly, truly does not matter any more.
As Rush Limbaugh says, “Elections have consequences.” (And any of you liberal lurkers who want to attack the quote just because Mr. Limbaugh is the one quoted will tell us more about yourselves that you will about Mr. Limbaugh. You really need to stop that silliness.)
The major consequence of the 2008 election is that we now have leadership with both numerical power and “legitimate authority” who do not care about common sense, a safe future for our nation or what is right in any sense of the word.
You are right. It is all wrong. Very, very fatally WRONG.
Chris Tingle’s mad at 0bama because his 401k now sucks. I don’t know what he was expecting. If the market gets any worse, the money people behind 0bama are going to turn on him.
I don’t get the neokeynesians behind this porkulus; they seem to be saying that the way to treat a hangover is to drink more.
When the train does come off the tracks (and we haven’t seen anything yet), 0bama’s going to be wishing for Bush’s approval numbers.
demokrats– and we have to live in this disaster for 4 years– God help us– the only thing I am buying anymore is food & gas–
if you voted for obama– go live with your mistake– and he spends OUR money!!!!!!!!!!!!
FIX THE BANKS FIRST OR NONE OF THIS WORKS
Economic solutions depend upon our bank based financial system, not stimulus or partisan spending.
http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/02/stimulus-cart-put-before-bank-horse.html
it’s easy spending someone else’s money. the politicians should be taking pay cuts and expense reductions based on their poor performance. they should be drug tested and means tested. why are we paying the medical premiums for super-rich pols.
I suppose one could imagine that our federal masters really do have a wildly exaggerated view of the capabilities of our economy. That is, no matter how much they handicap the economy, we will still figure out some way to revive a bloated corpse. Just a thought.
Steve P:
I guess the word hasn’t got to yet that President Obama will continue the Iraq adventure against a country that never hurt anyone accept a bunch of Marsh Arabs, Kurds and Jews.
Let me explain it to you. Like most Democrats Obama never opposed the war in Iraq out of prinicple. They opposed out of pure politics. It is pretty clear to me that Obama opposed it to get your vote safe in the knowledge the George Bush would continue doing the right thing. If you haven’t noticed that whatever he choses to call it Obama is following though 100% with the Bush approach to the GWOT.
What is different isn’t good. He is clearly planning to flip sides in the Middle East and seek closer relations with Iran at the expense of our other allies in the region. He has always surrounded himself with anti-Semites and he is clearly following their advice.
Steve P. I thought from the beginning the war in Iraq was ill advised with no relistic endgame (not to mention unforeseen consequences)…but you should actually use facts that are accurate when you slam people for hypocrisy.
Obama is showing he is more ignorant than Bush…you will eventually accept that fact.
I’m sick of hearing Obama blame this depression on Bush. Get real, you usurper of power. It was CLINTON AND CARTER’S COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT AND GREENSPAN’S MONEY SUPPLY that caused this global economic and financial disaster. Stop trying to change history. We all know you and your liberal elitist colleagues are good at re-writing the truth and brainwashing the kids in our high schools and universities, but the American people are smarter than that and will not allow your revisionist ways to blame this one on Bush.
And Obama can’t even compare to Bush on graciousness and class — Bush never blamed Clinton for “inheriting” 9/11. Because Obama has to do everything to deflect his mocking of the Constitution (not being a natural-born US citizen), he tries to put all the negative focus on anything Bush, like a poor-sport parent pointing fingers at his child’s rival. This bashing of good, honest citizens worked for him during the campaigns, but on his perpetual campaign for credibility, he continues the web of lies, deceit and broken promises that has propelled him to this sorry situation for America.
Because of Obama’s outright disrespect for the Constitution, he is paving the way for it to be okay for Americans to lie and cheat their way to elected office. He will prove to be the worse president and leader ever — grand rhetoric, revisionism, ultra-liberal elitism and Omni-Pork Stimulus Bill notwithstanding.
Wake up, America. This is just the opening number.
#7 Ron Kean – Spending went up under Reagan, but the debt went down as a percentage of GDP. This is because the economy boomed under Reagan. The spending increase was primarily for the arms race that eventually crushed the USSR. The important thign to remember is that military spending is a year-to-year thing, not a permanent entitlement program. When the USSR fell, we got the peace dividend, as Clinton scaled back the military.
#29 Steve P – We did not spend trillions on Iraq. Iraq and Afghanistan combined came to less than a trillion. We did spend an awful lot of money, 100′s of billions, on airport and other security measures. Again, it is important to realize that war expenditures are not permanent expenses. When the war is over, it’s over. Pelosi’s pork bill wil be permanent expenditures, year after year.
This financial crisis is government manufactured. They caused it, and they are prolonging it. Get rid of the CRA and mark-to-market. Change a couple other things, and the market will recover on its own. The more the government intervenes, the worse it gets.
Steve P.:
“…unaccountable trillions of dollars we have spent on the War in Iraq…”
If you think we spent trillions of dollars on the Iraq War, you are delusional. Furthermore, if you think the government could actually spend trillions of our tax dollars in an unaccountable fashion, you should be even more worried about the Democrats than I am. They’re up to around $3 trillion in their first month of government spending…I mean governing.
Your stimulus money is going to fund rebuilding the infrastructure of the Democratic Party, paying off their constituencies in hopes of consolidating their control of government. It’s an old fashioned power play subsumed under the rubric of “Change”.
Paying taxes is a necessary duty. It’s not optional. Being patriotic is a choice. It is the Democrats who have conflated the two.
I believe that few people on this site would disagree with the notion that George Bush wasted a lot of our money.
Steve P., the difference is freedom and oppression.
Your question reveals your confusion about the role of government in America.
Taxes raised and spent to defend our way of life against our enemies is the central purpose of the American government.
In addition to the other enumerated powers in the Constitution, there is not much anything else for it to do.
Your question reveals a belief that no endeavor is too small for government to take control.
What you should be asking each day is what self-determination do you keep if government already plays 100 roles in your life? How do you become more responsible when it legislates for itself roles #101, #102, and #103?
If you understand freedom, you will have the answer to your question.
TLM: he “wasted’ our money by trying to reach across the aisle with projects like senior prescriptions and education reform, but he was forced to to get support from the Democrats for other measures he chose to undertake, most particularly the WOT.
He did not, however, engage in the sort of patronage or electionaeering with public funds that the democrats are now engaged in, not was he creating programs with immense long term cost equivalent to the Obama machine.
Certainly the WOT was no “waste at all.
So if you are implying that there is some sort of moral or budgetary equivalence here between Bush and the Obama machine you are quite wring to do so.
Steve P….Please let me sum it up in a crayonesque way that you Obamanuts might just grasp…..
$$ spent on Iraq war = keeping the homeland safe
$$ spent on “stimulation” = pork
pork = projects that benefit politicians and not citizens
Obama = narcissist with delusions of grandeur now falling victim to his own ineptness
Any more questions? I think that just about sums it up! Of course I still have to smile when I think of George Bush being smug right now down in Texas. He was right all along and now watching Obama fumble the ball, the MSM is figuring it out too.
Why do we let liberals vote? They should have to prove they’ve read a book in the last 5 years (besides Doonesbury cartoons that is!).
We need to stop calling it the “Democratic” party. It isn’t democratic at all. The “Democrat” party, while waxing liberal, is really about the stripping of personal freedom, governmental interference and meddling, and about as far from true democracy as possible.
Perverse indeed.
I couldn’t agree with you more, except for one thing. I am the CFO of a relatively small bank. We did not beg for a bailout. We were told that it was our “patriotic duty” to take the additional capital in order to strengthen our balance sheet and, therefore, the banking system. I kid you not. The guy from Treasury said that.
We are profitable. We did not beg for the money and, by the way, it is not a gift, it is preferred stock and warrants on common stock. Admittedly, it is currently at a below-market rate, but when there is no market, what does that even mean? There are many banks like us out here in the world, hurting no one and trying to figure out what the government is going to do next that will threaten our survival.
After selling the preferred stock to the Treasury, they changed the rules. Now, instead of being about strengthening the balance sheet, we’re supposed to lend more in a down market. Now, the transaction that they begged us to do is turned into our supposed begging. Now, what was our patriotic duty is something that should be punished. Now, they cut private sector bonuses in profitable businesses in order to reap political benefit from making an enemy out of the small-time community banker…as if we were the Wall Street tycoons.
Well, the U.S. Government is now officially an untrustworthy business partner. One enters into a deal with them at your peril. They can change it on a whim. Shame on me for trusting them.
1) Not the point of the article, but _if_ one really did have a $150,000 mortgage and $400,000 in a passbook savings, one would be ahead financially by paying off the mortgage, as the interest rate earned on the passbook is most likely lower than the interest rate paid out on the mortgage.
2) Re: what MikeG wrote about “when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging. Obama’s instincts are to get a bigger shovel and dig faster” — well, he does talk about shovel ready projects an awful lot now, doesn’t he?
Another perverse thought.What if Obama and his thugs actually want the economy and stock market to continue to tank?What is the effect?
The destruction of private wealth.
When private wealth is destroyed it makes the government even more powerful.I know it sounds crazy but when you look at what the Democrats are serving up for an economic plan it is hard not to come to the conclusion that they want us all in servitude to the government.
By the way,what ever happened to Paul Volker?His history would preclude him supporting the “Stimulus” and the new budget.I think Obama just cynically used the man.
Mongoose:
I don’t disagree with your post. I need to clarify mine:
I think Bush wasted money and expanded the government, but that’s starting to appear rather insignificant compared to this administration.
The GWOT was/is not a waste of money, and I did not imply that it was. The war to remove Saddam Hussein was worth the cost, in lives and money spent.
I’m kicking myself for implying that I speak for anyone but myself.
“29. Steve P.:
Someone please explain to me why few if any on this board had even a single critical thing to say about the unaccountable trillions of dollars we have spent on the War in Iraq,”
Wow, that is about the most profound display of ignorance I can remember reading here. I know the left is known for such… but just WOW.
Steve P:
This administration is eclipsing the amount spent on the entire war in a single month. There’s no comparison between the cost of the war as compared to the porkulus + TARP II + the omnibus spending bill. The Administration’s reckless spending is reckless in its audacity.
Our military learned a lot of hard and important lessons in Iraq. Our politicians don’t even know what happened.
Hey, Mr. Hanson, you really need to get your publisher to make your books available in Kindle format. I want to read more of them, but having them available on Kindle would really help.
I liked the last Democratic President better on stimulus packages:
When Clinton wanted to stimulate his package, he called in an intern.
“”"”"”"A week or someone said never waste a good crisis, as in never waste a good f…(?) “”"”"”"”"
That was Mr. Pottymouth himself, Rahm Emannuel.
“”"”"”11. will:
How can you support pay caps for CEOs? When you cap talent, the talent will flee. This is essentially a price control that will hurt everyone. Capping pay may make us feel righteous for a day or two, but ultimately it will lead to poor management of tax assisted corporations. That is not beneficial for anyone.
Thoughts?”"”"”"”"”
The pay cap is for CEOs of companies given bailouts. If you’re a ward of the state, you forfeit some of your rughts.
Rod #59 “How can you support pay caps for CEOs? When you cap talent, the talent will flee.”
Are you kidding? Good riddance. As it stands now we are rewarding the “talent” that destroys us.
On the subject of Madoff and Ponzi schemes, isn’t Social Security the mother of all Ponzi schemes?? Add that thought to the list of perversions.
$333 billion we raise by appealing to the ‘patriotism’ of the “rich” who are to pay more taxes
seems as good a place as any to inquire, “in whose reality is $250,000 too poor to be included in the ‘needs to be pulling more of their weight’ tax category?”
no, not pushing taxes. simply not understanding in what reality the $250,000/year obama deemed the cutoff point the other night constitutes a poor person? ;)
Steve P.
Unlike the current spending bills, the spending on the Iraq war was debated in congress and got bi-partison support every time.
We need a constitutional amendment that limits taxation and total federal spending to low percentages of the GDP. Perhaps their can be a one year override with two third majorities. Without such an amendment, our government will forever be out of control. For let’s not soon forget that federal spending had increased over a trillion dollars under Bush and our fellow conservatives. Sure, Obama does one and a half times that in his first few weeks, but that’s only setting the stage for a future “conservative” to spend at an even faster rate than Bush.
Only an amendment can save us from these vultures.
#49 Doug — Oh – my – god. I wonder how many people really understand the implications of that? You should write Thomas Sowell about that — he could translate.
I suppose those of us with a conservative bent can take some solice in the fact that these elites will be just like the rest of us poor saps WTSHTF.
IOW it will be pretty tough for them to draw their US Govt golden parachute pensions from a dead and broken treasury.
And that thinking is nothing like lefty envy; just a realization that they reap what they sow.
I think the condition in #49 is somewhat summed up in the dynamics of a kind of “domestic suzerainity”..An enforced tribute(using code of implied threat, i.e.”patriotric duty”)to a power structure that sees anothers own labors and prosperity as threat to it’s preemminence.
This whole thing is nuts. Obama is going to go down as the worst President in US history. Worse than Carter, worse than Harrison, worse than Buchanan, worse than all of them. He’ll be lucky to win Illinois in 2012.
Post #5 J.E. Dyer-
Thanks for the links to the CRA debacle archives.
(could not send this from that site, I get these from the Hoover Institution’s Daily Report. Will comment on this one later.)
Re: A Funny sort of depression…another “feel good piece” directed toward the right wing with your usual curiously narrow point of view. Similar to one last year, where apparently everything was just fine because all these yuppies were playing merrily with their “toys” up in the Sierras somewhere. The truth is that things are bad, and getting worse:
Many people are losing their job.
Inflation still continues in health care (premiums, deductibles, out of pocket costs..15% to 20% in my case). Gasoline is slowly climbing again, and food as well.
My sources in the real estate industry seem to indicate that it is mostly speculators/investors buying distressed property right now, and taking a huge gamble that prices have reached bottom. I know a speculator who bought 3 homes in Fresno, and now they are lower than what he paid. Judging from our area in South Hayward, the bottom has yet to arrive, we are within $80,000 of what we paid in 1990 right now.
If real people, with real jobs, and real money do not start buying, then this “temporary floor” will collapse with further damage to our already weak economy…take off the rose colored glasses please….
RSG
Pay caps on CEOs? Why not have the Pied Piper and Congress take a pay cut instead? Why do these empty-suit morons expect other people to make sacrifices when they themselves do no such thing?
The Pied Piper is an arrogant, thin-skinned, liberal socialist who thinks that he is smarter than all the rest of us combined. All his ideas are the best, and all us American schmucks should just fall in line and let him lead the way.
1100-page Spending Spree? Why bother to read it? Just rubber-stamp it so we can get on to the next item of spending.
Mortgage bailout plan round 2? Why bother with details? Just give us the money and we will decide who gets how much (this from Timothy “I didn’t know I was supposed to pay those taxes” Geithner).
Lobbyists not allowed – except, of course, those lobbyists that we decide to allow.
Conserve energy, so there will be more energy for the Pied Piper to keep the temp in the Oval Office high.
And does anyone really care what kind of dog the Pied Piper gets?
Especially perverse is his $645 billion tax hidden in the Carbon Cap and Trade program.
This is a regressive tax, completely contrary to Obama’s populist rhetoric claiming the top 2% will pay for all the spending. Environmental hysteria trumps even socialist re-distribution in the Democrat Party.
OK this is for all of you who can’t seem to grasp what’s going on here. Total GDP is about 12 trillion or was before the Bush Administration put us on this course to deregulate-and-dont-enforce-any-lawsville. So consumers which make up 70% of the economy have stopped spending so abruptly that we’ve never seen this kind of panicked fear before. Business (10%) was caught off guard and is also cutting back spending. So GDP is down between 1-3 trillion dollars.
GDP is shrinking. Tax revenues will also shrink. Government is going into debt and the reason is that consumers and business have lost their faith in the growth of the economy. Their scared.
Now if the government also shrinks by cutting spending then the GDP shrinks even faster and the shortfall between tax revenues and expenditures grows. There’s almost no way the government could fire enough people and cut enough programs to shrink to fit inside the shrinking revenues in this scenario because it would be making it worse.
80 years ago economist figured this simple math out. In the face of a severe recession the government will only make things worse if it cuts spending. Only by spending money to make up the shortfall (in this case 1-3 trillion) can the government hope to forestall a collapse and use it’s ability to print money and spend to infuse jobs, spending and tax revenues back into the economy. The challenge is to spend enough to get the economy growing again. This is a phsychological issue. The term economists use is that we need to restore the animal spirits to the marketplace. Investing in new businesses (green tech), construction, schools, healthcare is a way to do that. Not the only way but certainly consistent with the areas the majority of the public wants to see investments in.
This is a one time spend and if the economy does begin to grow again then a modest cut back in annual spending in future years can indeed start to close the gap in revenue and expenditures and thereby close the deficit. This will not reduce the debt, that won’t happen until we have a surplus and stop the government from wasting on tax cuts and use it instead to pay down the debt.
The real threat is not that Obama is spending too much but that he may be spending too little. The theory says he’s short by a trillion. Let’s hope not.
#73 Benjamin – “80 years ago, economists figured this out.” 80 years ago was 1929. Yeah, that was great year. I really trust that wisdom. Economists figured out no such thing. Politicians did, and spending made the problem worse. It prolonged the depression.
People have stopped spending, because the government is scaring them to death. The moment the government stops doing anything, the economy will recover. People are afraid to do anything, because they’re not sure what the rules will be in a couple months. As long as the gummint tinkers, people will wait and see.
When government shrinks, it takes less money out of the private sector, aka people’s pockets. Sure, you can borrow and spend, thus inserting capital into the marketplace, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch. There is always a price to pay. In this case, it will be stagflation or hyperinflation.
@47. AThinkingPerson:
Orwellian, isn’t it?
war = peace
investment = waste
George Bush ≠ right all along (seriously, what was GWB right about?)
Liberals are the ones that invented voting. And liberals read more than conservatives. Have fun wrapping your head around that.
Peace.
DS
Interesting comments on our “Bizarro World” of today, for the first time in my life, actively investigating the possibilty of moving to another country…I am getting scared..!!
You always reflect my feelings and thinking, as I have written before. Maybe our time is over like the Elves and we need to accept it but there is no where to go.