The People's Republic of America
The name of the game is, of course, "privatize the profit, socialize the risk." Such a formula is so horrible, so unjust, so wrong, that it ends up being basically exactly what we do here in the United States. Liberals subconsciously want to socialize things, and they consciously want to "act" and "have plans" and "create 5 million new Green Collar jobs" and all that kind of nonsense you heard at the Denver convention, so they agree to the latter part. Liberals are kind of idiots economically anyway, which is why in July, back when oil was $147 a barrel, I had education people passionately insisting to me “The Bushies want gas at $7 a gallon before Obama can come in and put price controls on!!” I tried to say “You have more than 18 things wrong in that 18 word sentence, but to no avail.
Conservatives are basically chasing dollars in any and everyway possible, including corrupt and crooked ways, and so socializing the risk sounds good to them too. They can keep winning elections based off American fear that there are gay people in San Francisco, and Boyd K Packer’s insistence that us tolerating them is proof we are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
Poilitics is therefore almost always concerned with the first part, ie, how much profit should be privatized, what taxes should be, etc.
But now, for once, amidst giddy media hysteria and government overreaction, the world is, for a rare second, looking at risk being socialized. For an hour this morning I hear NPR cheerleading on economic catastrophe- they are overjoyed at the prospect.
There were literally tens of thousands of Wall Street "experts", at least, underwriters making $1.5 million commissions a year on repacking and flipping mortgage backed securities, hedge fund managers making billions off the low interest rates creating margins to play with- who made multiple millions as they drove this current mess. I can’t really blame them- if I were in such a spot and could just legally make bazooka bucks off such schemes, I probably would too. They aren’t supposed to be looking out for the greater good.
But the people who are supposed to be looking out for the greater good, protecting people’s property, etc. well, where were they? Government financial policy drove the housing bubble and drove and drove it. Interest rates have been too low for about 5 years now. Inflation is coming, monster inflation... what am I saying, it has been at 12-13% the past few months, it is already here.
And so now, a government running on a $600 billion+ a year deficit, with $10 trillion debt (which was $4.7 trillion and shrinking when W took over), is looking to add 50% to the deficit with Henry Poulson's "bold plan" to spend hundreds of billions to make every American a partial owner of the collapsing house of cards such Wall Street experts drove. Oh, and the national debt probably goes up to $15 trillion when you factor the takeover of Freddie and Fannie in. And that isn’t 4.3% TBill debt that old widows living off Social Security hold on to for a rainy day, that is the $350,000 mortgage on House #12 that my old landlords in Suncrest speculated on and then couldn’t flip. That is soon possibly the hundreds of millions that Zion's Bank lost when they financed the whole Suncrest development.
Lets look at recent economic history, by President.
Reagan "The stock market went up 231% in my 8 years. There was high unemployment and high inflation, I killed them both."
Clinton "The stock market went up 325% in my 8 years, and we started running surpluses."
Bush "I tripled the national debt in my 8 years, while the stock market is lower in September 2008 than it was in April 1999."
And so now our regrettable economic choices are:
McCain: Correctly saw Bush's tax cuts as fiscally irresponsible. He may not understand the Laffer Curve, but neither do those who tout it. A return to Clinton's top rate of 39.6%, instead of Bush's 35%? Wouldn't hurt the economy one bit, but McCain will oppose it- for now. He’s a Maverick- flip flop on Bush’s tax cuts when running as a Republican.
McCain has also repeatedly lied by claiming Obama's plan of only slightly raising taxes on $250,000 or more is going to raise taxes on people making $42,000.
And McCain would likely further increase US miliary spending- which- at an underestimated $711 billion in 2008, is 48% of the world's total, 2.5 times bigger than Europe combined. We, 5% of the world's population, spend as much as the rest of the world (95% of world's population) on military spending. Damn right, we are the City on the Hill, and nobody better F*** with our claim to that.
(This is where the Republican bed time story begins) …Yes, but the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska is the problem!!! :) 350,000 people go to Ketchikan International Airport via the ferry every year, and that bridge was the quintessential pork. How much is pork barrel spending you ask?
Conservatives are basically chasing dollars in any and everyway possible, including corrupt and crooked ways, and so socializing the risk sounds good to them too. They can keep winning elections based off American fear that there are gay people in San Francisco, and Boyd K Packer’s insistence that us tolerating them is proof we are worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
Poilitics is therefore almost always concerned with the first part, ie, how much profit should be privatized, what taxes should be, etc.
But now, for once, amidst giddy media hysteria and government overreaction, the world is, for a rare second, looking at risk being socialized. For an hour this morning I hear NPR cheerleading on economic catastrophe- they are overjoyed at the prospect.
There were literally tens of thousands of Wall Street "experts", at least, underwriters making $1.5 million commissions a year on repacking and flipping mortgage backed securities, hedge fund managers making billions off the low interest rates creating margins to play with- who made multiple millions as they drove this current mess. I can’t really blame them- if I were in such a spot and could just legally make bazooka bucks off such schemes, I probably would too. They aren’t supposed to be looking out for the greater good.
But the people who are supposed to be looking out for the greater good, protecting people’s property, etc. well, where were they? Government financial policy drove the housing bubble and drove and drove it. Interest rates have been too low for about 5 years now. Inflation is coming, monster inflation... what am I saying, it has been at 12-13% the past few months, it is already here.
And so now, a government running on a $600 billion+ a year deficit, with $10 trillion debt (which was $4.7 trillion and shrinking when W took over), is looking to add 50% to the deficit with Henry Poulson's "bold plan" to spend hundreds of billions to make every American a partial owner of the collapsing house of cards such Wall Street experts drove. Oh, and the national debt probably goes up to $15 trillion when you factor the takeover of Freddie and Fannie in. And that isn’t 4.3% TBill debt that old widows living off Social Security hold on to for a rainy day, that is the $350,000 mortgage on House #12 that my old landlords in Suncrest speculated on and then couldn’t flip. That is soon possibly the hundreds of millions that Zion's Bank lost when they financed the whole Suncrest development.
Lets look at recent economic history, by President.
Reagan "The stock market went up 231% in my 8 years. There was high unemployment and high inflation, I killed them both."
Clinton "The stock market went up 325% in my 8 years, and we started running surpluses."
Bush "I tripled the national debt in my 8 years, while the stock market is lower in September 2008 than it was in April 1999."
And so now our regrettable economic choices are:
McCain: Correctly saw Bush's tax cuts as fiscally irresponsible. He may not understand the Laffer Curve, but neither do those who tout it. A return to Clinton's top rate of 39.6%, instead of Bush's 35%? Wouldn't hurt the economy one bit, but McCain will oppose it- for now. He’s a Maverick- flip flop on Bush’s tax cuts when running as a Republican.
McCain has also repeatedly lied by claiming Obama's plan of only slightly raising taxes on $250,000 or more is going to raise taxes on people making $42,000.
And McCain would likely further increase US miliary spending- which- at an underestimated $711 billion in 2008, is 48% of the world's total, 2.5 times bigger than Europe combined. We, 5% of the world's population, spend as much as the rest of the world (95% of world's population) on military spending. Damn right, we are the City on the Hill, and nobody better F*** with our claim to that.
(This is where the Republican bed time story begins) …Yes, but the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska is the problem!!! :) 350,000 people go to Ketchikan International Airport via the ferry every year, and that bridge was the quintessential pork. How much is pork barrel spending you ask?
“1-2% of the federal budget, a drop in the bucket compared to military spending-“ SHUT UP GODLESS LIBERALS!! WHO LET YOU IN HERE?
Pork is the entire problem.
“It is interconnected quite frequently with crumbling infrastructure (See New Orleans, Minnesota, etc.)”
SHUT UP LIBERALS. PORK IS THE PROBLEM!! Repeat it like a mantra until you believe it! Yes, yes. Republicans- you didn't lose in Nov. 2006 because Bush and Rumsfeld had their proverbial heads in the sand for 3 1/2 years on Iraq, no no. The sand isn’t the typical Republican location of one's head- no no no. It was because people were pissed about Alaskans no longer having to take a ferry to get to the airport. That is why Congress flipped, because of spending. People voted you out because you acted too much like Democrats. Americans voted for Pelosi in 2006 because they wanted you to be more pure. Go to bed now. (end of GOP bedtime story)
I'm still not done with McCain on economics- let's see, SEC Chief Christopher Cox and NY AG Andrew Cuomo make short-selling illegal (what is this, Russia??!! Whose idea was that? Gray Davis?) and McCain wants Cox fired for not doing enough!!?? McCain was green- no ANWR drilling, no off shore drilling, until the energy mess made being green not trendy any more, so now Maverick Man is Senator Drill Drill Drill.
Obama: The plan to create 5 million new "Green Collar jobs" says enough. Basically, if you think a government owned by the Chinese is good, then vote for a 3rd New Deal in the FDR-LBJ-BO continuum.
I'm still not done with McCain on economics- let's see, SEC Chief Christopher Cox and NY AG Andrew Cuomo make short-selling illegal (what is this, Russia??!! Whose idea was that? Gray Davis?) and McCain wants Cox fired for not doing enough!!?? McCain was green- no ANWR drilling, no off shore drilling, until the energy mess made being green not trendy any more, so now Maverick Man is Senator Drill Drill Drill.
Obama: The plan to create 5 million new "Green Collar jobs" says enough. Basically, if you think a government owned by the Chinese is good, then vote for a 3rd New Deal in the FDR-LBJ-BO continuum.
Regrettably Keynes once said that governments can just run up the credit cards eternally and it wouldn't ever hurt- "in the long run we'll all be dead", etc.. Well, imagine if TBills have to start paying higher interest rates because the Chinese decide that the US government isn't fiscally sound. Imagine if they have to pay a lot more because we have to borrow so darn much, the dollar goes weak, every bad company and bad mortgage becomes the government's responsibility, etc. etc. etc.
Conclusion: This is not a "crisis" yet, nor is it "the worst since the Great Depression" or anything else. But I am much more concerned that the policy makers all around seem to think that a little tough medicine should be avoided at all costs. Some companies go under, some financial high flyers crash into a few less millions, 1-2% of homeowners who behaved stupidly lose, while 1-2% of young maybe wannabe homeowners like me benefit from falling prices.
Americans who bought $400,000, 4000 square foot, brand new houses- people who work off commission sales incomes-why on Earth do we need to keep them afloat? They go under and have to move into apartments and start over. Sorry, McCain, they aren't "hard working Americans who played by the rules", for the most part. I know- I have lived next to and around them and rented from them for a couple years now. I am a good neighbor and listen as people commiserate or ask if we'd be willing to rent from them while they move into an apartment for awhile. They are real estate agents and salesmen and construction people and the like, people who don't have stable incomes and bought high and can't afford to sell low, but aren't rolling in good time money anymore. I have no idea what idiot banks were doing giving them $400,000 loans at low interest on "stated incomes" for anyway, especially when they put $0 down or something nominal like $3000 down. I mean, it sucks, I see these people and I am friends with them, but God can either decide to let the good times roll forever, or else we have to make sensible decisions and cut losses. Unemployment goes up a little for a bit, inflation falls, kinks get worked out. Dummies who said "Yes, Utah should build 500,000 brand new homes that are all 4000 square feet and $300K-$500K, because people here in the land of $53,000 median household income can afford that" should be the ones who lose. All I ask is that the system let that happen. In the grand scheme of things, NO BIG DEAL.
If, instead, the government tries to put in the Bill of Rights "A homeowner's right to a housing market eternally climbing by 20% a year shall not be infringed upon", and continues to run a tax policy of "no billionaire left behind", only then will high inflation and imperial overreach combine to send us towards some bad stuff.
Where is Ayn Rand when you need her?
If, instead, the government tries to put in the Bill of Rights "A homeowner's right to a housing market eternally climbing by 20% a year shall not be infringed upon", and continues to run a tax policy of "no billionaire left behind", only then will high inflation and imperial overreach combine to send us towards some bad stuff.
Where is Ayn Rand when you need her?
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