learning. ~ Mark Twain
Are some of the media types beginning to learn?
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I will protect our military and the pigeons applauded. (See 1 below.)
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Another take on Clint that fits my own assessment.
Clint, like Reagan like Wayne like Stewart, may have been Hollywood but their sense of who they were/are remain(ed) rooted in America.
I am not saying Obama is un-American but his roots and connection to our nation is vastly different and diffused and, as 2016 suggests, therefore, makes him different, his thinking different and his goal for this nation different
His different is not good in my opinion. In fact it is very dangerous and destructive..
The road Obama traveled is not the same and his fellow travelers were not the same. This cannot be denied and goes a long way toward helping to explain who he is and why he does what he does.
His anti-Colonial attitude just breaks through. (See 2 below.)
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Nothing Flukey about Sandra. She belongs where she is. I just do not believe my tax dollars should pay for her expressed promiscuity.
If she wants to spend more time having affairs than cracking law books that is her business. I just do not see why Uncle Sam should become her pill dispenser. If we cannot stop there then where does this insanity of government entitlement end? (See 3 below.)
My friend who sent this to me pretty much concludes as I have - we must prioritize and fix what needs fixing. I believe Romney and Ryan are in a far better position to do this than Obama and Biden who had their chance and flubbed.
Secondly, the question still remains whether America, the Flukes and pigeons out there have the patriotism to allow for the inevitable pain to be experienced or will they cry foul and push the false political sound bite claim it is all being done on the backs of the poor? (See 3a below.)
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My friend, Patrick Fleming CFA , of Caldwell Orkin, made a comprehensive presentation today and discussed The Fiscal Cliff, The Fed Monetary Policy, The Economy and the Election.
Fiscal Cliff:
Using extensive charts Patrick cited the CBO's prediction that if Congress does not alter course going off the fiscal cliff will:
a) reduce the budget deficit by $487 billion.
b) Cause an economic contraction of -2.9% in 1H'13
c) -.5% in 2013 (double dip recession)
d) Send unemployment to 9.1%
The Simpson-Bowles Commission, which Obama created and then ignored, recommended reducing spending from 25% of GDP to 21% and raising revenue from 15% of GDP o 19%..
The crisis we face is a debt and deficit one.
Rogoff and Reinhart have studied 8 centuries of financial crises and concluded:
a) Humans do not create new mistakes but repeat old ones
b) at 90% public debt to GDP restrains economic growth.
In the previous GREAT DEPRESSION, this ratio reached 260% and if you take all federal debt (includes off balance sheet - somewhere between $66 and$70 trillion) we are now at 590% and the restraint is evident by virtue of the fact that debt creation has lost leverage, lost its MO JO , ie. 12/31/'49 - 12/31/'59 Debt to GDP was 1.36 and for the same period ending 3/31/'12 Debt / GDP is 4.50.
To return to GREAT DEPRESSION Levels would entail a 26% decline in debt and/or a GDP of $21 trillion or 35% growth for 10 years. Neither likely.
Household and corporate balance sheets are still de-leverage but government is not. Government debt has grown from 36% of GDP to 69%.
Finally, what happens if interest rates creep up and what would be the impact on paying interest on our nation's burgeoning debt? Obviously not good.
Patrick cited a few executives responding to the fiscal cliff matter and the uncertainty is causing them to hunker down and not commit capital. What business wants is: deficit visibility, less regulation and a simplified tax structure.
(These business desires do not seem to accord with the politics of populism - my comment.)
Federal Reserve Policy:
Patrick made an analogy of a pool and a ball. When The Fed supplies water (money) the pool fills and the ball floats higher, ie. economic activity occurs as does employment. The de-leveraging effect is the hole in the pool The Fed is fighting.
Yes, The Fed's balance sheet has expanded, even exploded, but until you achieve your target you must not stop QE according to Ken Rogoff in "This Time is Different."
Bernanke told us liquidity would flow into the market and as the market rose it would create a positive wealth effect. It has but one must ask can QE be an open-ended policy? There is no inflation according to Fed calculations and it is evident the economy is experiencing a fiscal drag. The last thing you want to have happen is a shrinking monetary base. This would create a headwind for growth.
There is also no velocity effect because banks are sitting with excess reserves, not lending but neither is there strong loan demand under the current economic outlook. Banks fear that if we have inflation as a result of liquidity and the ultimate resumption of growth The Fed might raise reserve requirements. Another fear, and history supports, an easy monetary policy fuels bubbles.
What must occur is a 'beautiful' de-leveraging: combination of austerity, debt restructuring and printing money.
(When I was more active Al Sommers was the economic advisor to my firm and he always pointed out that he did not want to be in a 747 landing at 90 MPH, ie. whenever The Fed began slowing the economic engines they, more often than, not created tremendous instability.)
The Economy:
As a firm they:
Blame Greenspan for providing too much liquidity at three specific times when he should not have, housing is in a recovery mode and is their largest sector exposure, the consumer debt service obligations are low and the key variable is interest rates and they are negative on China as well as Australia as places to invest currently. Russia and Europe remain an enigma as well.
Conclusion: Economic landscape fraught with risk, fiscal cliff adds more unknown elements, though they expect some kind of deal will be stitched together. Monetary policy is needed, unprecedented and dangerous, the U.S. economy is recovering at a tepid pace and debt is weighing on growth everywhere.
The Election:
Obma Wins -
Pros: Keeps Bernanke and coupled with strong Republican Congress more bad policy actions are neutralized.
Con: More taxes, anti-business environment and regulatory burdens remain.
Romney Wins:
Pros: Friendlier business atmosphere, lower taxes and career experience.
Cons: Anti-Bernanke, possible attempt to return to gold standard and government in control of one party produces no checks and balances. (See 4 below.)
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Dick
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1)Sneaky submarine bad sign for U.S. readiness
By Adm. James A. Lyons
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
A Russian Akula-class cruise-missile attack submarine recently transited the North Atlantic and operated undetected in the Gulf of Mexico for an undeclared period of time. The United States did not find out until after it left. This should not have come as a surprise.
The naval resources we once had that implemented the Navy’s Maritime Strategy, a major factor in winning the Cold War, have been decimated. President Reagan’s 600-ship Navy has been allowed to atrophy to about 285 ships. To put that number in perspective, that is approximately the number of ships I had under my command of the Pacific Fleet. With the current anemic shipbuilding plan forced on the Navy by the Obama administration’s drastic budget cuts, we are headed for the smallest Navy since World War I.
The argument that our ships are so much more capable today that we don’t need as many is pure nonsense. The world hasn’t shrunk. If an objective look is taken at the realigned geographic boundaries assigned our combat commanders (COCOMs) as a result of Sept. 11, 2001, it should become clear how a Russian Akula submarine can transit the North Atlantic and operate in the Gulf of Mexico undetected.
The Atlantic Ocean is divided up into four sectors, with responsibility shared by four COCOMs — U.S. European Command, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Southern Command, and U.S. African Command. Previously, the Atlantic was under a single U.S. Atlantic Command, with the commander of the U.S. 2nd Fleet as both the operational commander and the NATO Striking Fleet commander. That command has been disbanded. Today, the U.S. Northern Command, with headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., carries that responsibility with U.S. Fleet Forces Command as its naval component commander based in Norfolk, Va.
While it is quite possible that two-thirds of the Akula’s transit took place in the European Command’s area of supervision, that should give no comfort because that command lacks the naval resources to carry out its responsibility. In a recent conversation with me, a former commander of the Northern Commandexpressed the same sentiments. He never had the naval resources to carry out his duties.
The undetected Akula cruise-missile submarine deployment is compounded by the fact that Iran already has established missile bases in Venezuela that can reach a number of American cities. In his best appeasement rhetoric, President Obama has stated that he does not think “what Hugo Chavez has done in the last several years has had a serious national security impact on us.” I doubt the American cities that are within range of those Iranian missiles would share that view, particularly if they understood the seriousness of our vulnerability.
What Iran is doing in Venezuela today is what the Soviet Union tried to do in Cuba in 1962. The principles of the Monroe Doctrine prevailed then under the leadership of President Kennedy, backed up by a massive deployment of naval ships to impose a quarantine around Cuba. Our national security was preserved by having the Soviets withdraw their missiles from Cuba. Nothing less is acceptable today. When the 4th Fleet, the naval component for the U.S. Southern Command, states that its most pressing security issue is crime, we have a problem. If there is no implementation of the Monroe Doctrine to force the removal of the Iranian missiles from Venezuela, rest assured that longer-range Iranian missiles will find their way there, putting more American cities at risk.
With the current impasse over the Iranian nuclear weapons program, a U.S. or Israeli military strike becomes a real possibility to eliminate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. In such a scenario, Iranian missiles remaining inVenezuela clearly are unacceptable. If the Monroe Doctrine is not invoked to remove them, they must be destroyed. Furthermore, we must expedite plans to provide defensive coverage of our exposed southern flank on an expedited basis with an Aegis anti-ballistic-missile system, which can be a combination of land- and sea-based systems.
Russia’s assertive Akula deployment follows a June exercise of its strategic bombers and support aircraft in the Arctic, simulating strikes against Alaska . Then in July, a Russian Bear H strategic bomber most likely simulated strikes against California from the Gulf of Alaska . It was intercepted before, hopefully, it was able reach its simulated missile-launch position. The questionable new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia requires 14-day advance notification when such bomber exercises are conducted. No notification was given. This requirement creates a false sense of security because it certainly could be used for deceptive purposes. As a commander, you always want to retain the initiative and thereby keep your potential enemies off balance. You want to remain unpredictable. In that way, you raise the level of deterrence.
So much for the Obama administration’s “reset” with Russia. That nation clearly has been given new marching orders by its recently inaugurated President Vladimir Putin at a time when our national leadership is perceived to be weak. Social engineering imposed on our military by the administration has not enhanced our military capabilities. Our military has been involved in two wars over the past decade and has been run hard and put away wet.
These factors, when combined with looming, draconian budget cuts, will weaken our military capabilities and our ability to deter aggression. Our potential enemies see these growing weaknesses as opportunities to be exploited. There is no question that we are being challenged.
Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2) Everyone uses the 'road'… The most brilliant political speech in decades wasn't given by a politician… An invisible Mr. OBAMA!…
By John Mauldin
Nobody else could hear the person in the chair speaking…
In fact, nobody else in the entire auditorium saw President OBAMA! sitting in the chair next to Clint Eastwood. But that didn't matter. Americans love Eastwood for many of the same reasons they loved Ronald Reagan…
Like Reagan, Eastwood was a handsome film star. He played many heroic roles. Like Reagan, Eastwood has "common sense" political ideas, which are deeply skeptical of the government and don't fit neatly into either political party.
But even more so than Reagan… in real life, Eastwood lived the tough image he portrayed in films. He is a fiercely independent, iconoclastic, self-made man… whose passion for women made his life pretty complicated. He has seven children from five different women. In an era of mostly anodyne male stars (many of whom are secretly gay) playing effeminate roles, Eastwood doesn't merely represent traditional masculinity… he is more like the last living cowboy.
America loves cowboys, despite their obvious flaws and contradictions. So if Eastwood said OBAMA! was sitting next to him, telling him to "shut up" and do things that are "physically impossible," who was going to argue with him? Not me. And not anyone else in the room, either.
Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention – which the actor said was completely extemporaneous – was rambling and filled with simple (but brilliant) observations. Eastwood understands how the vast majority of Americans relate to the mass media and the core political issues of today…
Most of us don't take the media seriously. Most of us don't want Washington telling us what to do or how to raise our kids. Most of us don't want political leaders (especially those who have never served in the military) sending our kids to foreign lands on endless "nation building" exercises. Most of us think Washington has lost its mind when it comes to fiscal matters. The government spends far too much money, and too many Americans get a free ride. Polls find vast agreement with these common sentiments… and yet… none of these concerns are addressed in the Republican platform.
"Oprah was crying," Eastwood said in a line that made the entire audience laugh. He was mocking the most iconic figure of the mainstream media, a woman who became rich and famous by pandering to the public, kissing up to anyone she perceived as powerful, and using her popularity to push the Democratic agenda.
Regarding our decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Eastwood quipped: "We didn't check with the Russians to see how they did there for 10 years." Then he asked OBAMA!, "Why don't you just bring the troops home tomorrow morning?"
Just about every American I've spoken with has asked the same questions about our troops' continuing mission in Afghanistan. But again, you won't find this issue on the Republican platform.
Eastwood even mocked Air Force 1 – the leading symbol of the president's power. He told OBAMA! he could still use the plane if he'd simply step aside in favor of Romney… "Although maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas-guzzler you're driving when you're going around to colleges talking about student loans… No, I can't do that to myself, either."
The best line of the speech, and the only truly important thing Eastwood said, came at the end: "We own this country… Politicians are employees of ours. They're just going to come around and beg for votes every few years… It's the same old deal."
This sentiment – that the folks in Washington aren't nearly as important as they believe – was sure to set off the "chattering" class. And it did. The mainstream media pilloried Eastwood…
Andrea Mitchell – a longtime fixture at NBC News and the wife of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan – reacted as though she hadn't understood a word Eastwood said. "This was exceedingly strange… It just seemed like a very strange, unscripted moment," she said.
MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow called it "the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a political convention in my entire life."
That's right. Eastwood's speech wasn't comically scripted. It didn't push an agenda designed to satisfy corporate backers and other special interests. It wasn't written by an overeducated, Ivy League speechwriter. It wasn't vetted by seven different planning committees. And it couldn't have doubled for a May Day speech at the Kremlin.
Eastwood's speech was plain, simple, American wisdom about the way our country would be run if it were actually run for the benefit of its owners.
In fact, nobody else in the entire auditorium saw President OBAMA! sitting in the chair next to Clint Eastwood. But that didn't matter. Americans love Eastwood for many of the same reasons they loved Ronald Reagan…
Like Reagan, Eastwood was a handsome film star. He played many heroic roles. Like Reagan, Eastwood has "common sense" political ideas, which are deeply skeptical of the government and don't fit neatly into either political party.But even more so than Reagan… in real life, Eastwood lived the tough image he portrayed in films. He is a fiercely independent, iconoclastic, self-made man… whose passion for women made his life pretty complicated. He has seven children from five different women. In an era of mostly anodyne male stars (many of whom are secretly gay) playing effeminate roles, Eastwood doesn't merely represent traditional masculinity… he is more like the last living cowboy.
America loves cowboys, despite their obvious flaws and contradictions. So if Eastwood said OBAMA! was sitting next to him, telling him to "shut up" and do things that are "physically impossible," who was going to argue with him? Not me. And not anyone else in the room, either.
Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention – which the actor said was completely extemporaneous – was rambling and filled with simple (but brilliant) observations. Eastwood understands how the vast majority of Americans relate to the mass media and the core political issues of today…Most of us don't take the media seriously. Most of us don't want Washington telling us what to do or how to raise our kids. Most of us don't want political leaders (especially those who have never served in the military) sending our kids to foreign lands on endless "nation building" exercises. Most of us think Washington has lost its mind when it comes to fiscal matters. The government spends far too much money, and too many Americans get a free ride. Polls find vast agreement with these common sentiments… and yet… none of these concerns are addressed in the Republican platform.
"Oprah was crying," Eastwood said in a line that made the entire audience laugh. He was mocking the most iconic figure of the mainstream media, a woman who became rich and famous by pandering to the public, kissing up to anyone she perceived as powerful, and using her popularity to push the Democratic agenda.Regarding our decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Eastwood quipped: "We didn't check with the Russians to see how they did there for 10 years." Then he asked OBAMA!, "Why don't you just bring the troops home tomorrow morning?"
Just about every American I've spoken with has asked the same questions about our troops' continuing mission in Afghanistan. But again, you won't find this issue on the Republican platform.
Eastwood even mocked Air Force 1 – the leading symbol of the president's power. He told OBAMA! he could still use the plane if he'd simply step aside in favor of Romney… "Although maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas-guzzler you're driving when you're going around to colleges talking about student loans… No, I can't do that to myself, either." The best line of the speech, and the only truly important thing Eastwood said, came at the end: "We own this country… Politicians are employees of ours. They're just going to come around and beg for votes every few years… It's the same old deal." This sentiment – that the folks in Washington aren't nearly as important as they believe – was sure to set off the "chattering" class. And it did. The mainstream media pilloried Eastwood…Andrea Mitchell – a longtime fixture at NBC News and the wife of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan – reacted as though she hadn't understood a word Eastwood said. "This was exceedingly strange… It just seemed like a very strange, unscripted moment," she said.
MSNBC talk-show host Rachel Maddow called it "the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a political convention in my entire life."
That's right. Eastwood's speech wasn't comically scripted. It didn't push an agenda designed to satisfy corporate backers and other special interests. It wasn't written by an overeducated, Ivy League speechwriter. It wasn't vetted by seven different planning committees. And it couldn't have doubled for a May Day speech at the Kremlin.Eastwood's speech was plain, simple, American wisdom about the way our country would be run if it were actually run for the benefit of its owners.
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3)While America Slides Off A Cliff, The Democrats Go To Sandra Fluke
According to Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, invited to address the Democratic convention and the nation, America faces a stark choice this November.
"During this campaign, we've heard about two profoundly different futures that could await women in this country — and how one of those futures looks like an offensive, obsolete relic of our past," she cautioned. "That future could become real."
In one of those futures, women will be "shut out and silenced," rape victims will be "victimized all over again," pregnant women will "die preventable deaths in our emergency rooms" and "access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it." If you're wondering where all that is on your ballot form, just check the box marked "R."
"We know what this America would look like," warned Miss Fluke sternly. "In a few short months, that's the America that we could be. But that's not the America that we should be. And it's not who we are."
Fortunately, the America that we could be that isn't the America that we should be doesn't have to be the America that we would be.
The good news is that "we've also seen another America that we could choose. In that America, we'd have the right to choose," said Miss Fluke. This would be "an America in which our president, when he hears that a young woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters, not his delegates or his donors. And in which our president stands with all women. And strangers come together, and reach out and lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here, and you give me this microphone — to amplify our voice. That's the difference."
So, if you're looking for an America where strangers lift up Sandra Fluke and amplify her voice, that would be the box marked "D."
"I've seen what these two futures look like," she said. "And six months from now, we're all going to be living in one future, or the other. But only one."
Because you can't have two futures simultaneously, even under ObamaCare.
With respect to Sandra Fluke, I think there's a third future looming. The paperback edition of my book comes out in a week or so, and you can pretty much get the gist of it from the title: "After America."
For me, the likely scenario isn't that the Republicans will be terrorizing rape victims or that the Democrats will finally pass the necessary legislation to make contraception available for the contraceptively starved millions crying out for it, but that America will be sliding off the cliff — literally, as Joe Biden would literally say. And when America slides off the cliff it lands with a much bigger thud than Greece or Iceland.
I'm not certain that the Republicans will be able to prevent that happening. But I know that the Democrats can't. America owes more money than anybody has ever owed anyone in the history of the planet. But millions of Americans don't see it, and millions of those who do see it don't see it as a problem.
Sandra Fluke is one of them. She completed her education a few weeks ago — at the age of 31, or Grade 25. Before going to Georgetown, she warmed up with a little light BS in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Cornell. She then studied law at one of the most prestigious institutions in the nation, where tuition costs 50 grand a year. The average starting salary for a Georgetown Law graduate is $160,000 per annum — first job, first paycheck.
So this is America's best and brightest — or, at any rate, most expensively credentialed. Sandra Fluke has been blessed with a quarter-million dollars of elite education, and, on the evidence of Wednesday night, is entirely incapable of making a coherent argument.
She has enjoyed the leisurely decade-long varsity once reserved for the minor sons of Mitteleuropean grand dukes, and she has concluded that the most urgent need facing the Brokest Nation in History is for someone else to pay for the contraception of 30-year old children. She says the choice facing America is whether to be "a country where we mean it when we talk about personal freedom, or one where that freedom doesn't apply to our bodies and our voices" — and, even as the words fall leaden from her lips, she doesn't seem to comprehend that Catholic institutions think their "voices" ought to have freedom, too, or that ObamaCare seizes jurisdiction over "our bodies" and has 16,000 new IRS agents ready to fine us for not making arrangements for "our" pancreases and "our" bladders that meet the approval of the commissars.
Sexual liberty, even as every other liberty withers, is all that matters: A middle-school girl is free to get an abortion without parental consent, but if she puts a lemonade stand on her lawn she'll be fined. What a bleak and reductive concept of "personal freedom."
America is so broketastically brokey-broke that one day, in the grim future that could be, society may even be forced to consider whether there is any meaningful return on investment for paying a quarter-million bucks to send the scions of wealth and privilege to school until early middle-age to study Reproductive Justice.
But, as it stands right now, a Cornell and Georgetown graduate doesn't understand the central reality of the future her elders have bequeathed her. There's no "choice" in the matter. It's showing up whatever happens in November. All the election will decide is whether America wants to address that reality, or continue to live in delusion — like a nation staggering around with a giant condom rolled over its collective head.
Any space aliens prowling through the rubble of our civilization and stumbling upon a recording of the convention compatible with Planet Zongo DVD players will surely marvel at the valuable peak airtime allotted to Sandra Fluke. It was weird to see her up there among the governors and senators — as weird as Bavarians thought it was when King Ludwig decided to make his principal advisor Lola Montez, the Irish-born "Spanish dancer" and legendary grande horizontale.
I hasten to add I'm not saying Miss Fluke is King Barack's courtesan. For one thing, it's a striking feature of the Age of Perfected Liberalism that modern liberals talk about sex 24/7 while simultaneously giving off the persistent whiff that the whole thing's a bit of a chore. Hence, the need for government subsidy. And, in fairness to Miss Montez, she used sex to argue for liberalized government, whereas Miss Fluke uses liberalism to argue for sexualized government.
But those distinctions aside, like Miss Fluke, Miss Montez briefly wielded an influence entirely disproportionate to her talents. Like Miss Fluke, she was a passionate liberal activist who sought to diminish what she regarded as the malign influence of the Catholic Church.
Taking up with Lola cost King Ludwig his throne in the revolutions of 1848. We'll see in a couple of months whether taking up with Sandra works out for King Barack. But what's strange is that so many people don't find it strange at all — that at a critical moment in the affairs of the republic the ruling party should assemble to listen to a complacent 31-year old child of privilege peddling the lazy cobwebbed assumptions of myopic narcissism. Lola Montez was what botanists would call a "sport" — morphologically distinct from the rest of the societal shrub. The tragedy for America is that Sandra Fluke is all too typical.
© Mark Steyn, 2012
3a) 'Assuming that “Labor, Health Care, Education, Science, Social Security, and Women…” are important issues (and they are and I can add many pother social issues) one has to prioritize the key ones. Today for the US (and the world) the economy and foreign affairs leadership are the prime concern. The social issues can be decided later. Otherwise one may end up with great labor relations, an insolvent social security system, great education, science and women who have their birth control devices paid for but an economy that cannot sustain any of these and that will degrade US stature in the world. A closed factory will not be beneficial to any labor union. It is high time to stop talking with hollow terms of reference that sound more like singing names from the phone book than a reasonable sound scientific effort at improving policy that is important to the entire US not just a single party.'
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4)The Super Bubble: The Real Problem in America
We are in the political season. I am not a big fan of elections or politics in general. I think the problem is it gets dumbed down into sound bites and the like.
There is a line out there that the Democrats want to tax and spend and the Republicans want to borrow and spend. Other than that, I do not see much of a difference.
The problems are not the shallow sound bites that you hear on TV or read on liberal or conservative blogs. President Barack Obama is a socialist! Mitt Romney just wants to help his rich buddies! George W. Bush was eight years of failed policies, etc.
There is enough blame to go around. The real problem is that instead of structurally changing the American economy to invest in engineering and productivity, all we did was encourage debt, spending and housing. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were used by the left to allow the poor to buy houses they could not afford, and financial deregulation was used by the right to allow Wall Street to run amok with financial engineering at the expense of the rest of the country.
Below is a chart courtesy of Pimco.com about the growth of private debt in the last 60 years. This includes both Republican and Democratic governments. America was living beyond its means. That was the problem!
Article continues below the chart.
The bubble blew up under George W. Bush. However, Bill Clinton does not deserve the moniker of the “boom president.” Under Clinton, the bubble just got bigger. The 90s were not real prosperity. The 90s were based on personal debt growing larger, loose monetary policy and a bogus Internet bubble that blew up.
George W. Bush spent and cut taxes, which made problems worse when the financial crisis hit. Obama inherited a mess; however, he just made the mess
His stimulus was a waste of time and money mostly went to union buddies or unproductive welfare and unemployment schemes. Infrastructure or a real energy plan could have been created to get the country from relying on foreign oil. Instead, we got welfare and food stamps. And Obama had a Democratic Congress for his first two years, so he has no one to blame but himself.
What is needed is a real debate. Is either candidate talking about entitlement reform, reducing the size of the American empire or getting the country off foreign oil? No, no and no. It is a shallow debate.
Until the country starts to talk about real issues and not about Obama’s birth certificate or how much Romney pays in taxes, we will continue on the path to nowhere.
4)The Super Bubble: The Real Problem in America
There is a line out there that the Democrats want to tax and spend and the Republicans want to borrow and spend. Other than that, I do not see much of a difference.
The problems are not the shallow sound bites that you hear on TV or read on liberal or conservative blogs. President Barack Obama is a socialist! Mitt Romney just wants to help his rich buddies! George W. Bush was eight years of failed policies, etc.
There is enough blame to go around. The real problem is that instead of structurally changing the American economy to invest in engineering and productivity, all we did was encourage debt, spending and housing. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were used by the left to allow the poor to buy houses they could not afford, and financial deregulation was used by the right to allow Wall Street to run amok with financial engineering at the expense of the rest of the country.
Below is a chart courtesy of Pimco.com about the growth of private debt in the last 60 years. This includes both Republican and Democratic governments. America was living beyond its means. That was the problem!
Article continues below the chart.
The bubble blew up under George W. Bush. However, Bill Clinton does not deserve the moniker of the “boom president.” Under Clinton, the bubble just got bigger. The 90s were not real prosperity. The 90s were based on personal debt growing larger, loose monetary policy and a bogus Internet bubble that blew up.
George W. Bush spent and cut taxes, which made problems worse when the financial crisis hit. Obama inherited a mess; however, he just made the mess
His stimulus was a waste of time and money mostly went to union buddies or unproductive welfare and unemployment schemes. Infrastructure or a real energy plan could have been created to get the country from relying on foreign oil. Instead, we got welfare and food stamps. And Obama had a Democratic Congress for his first two years, so he has no one to blame but himself.
What is needed is a real debate. Is either candidate talking about entitlement reform, reducing the size of the American empire or getting the country off foreign oil? No, no and no. It is a shallow debate.
Until the country starts to talk about real issues and not about Obama’s birth certificate or how much Romney pays in taxes, we will continue on the path to nowhere.
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