In poker tournaments there are often “last longer” side bets between friends where the person who goes deepest gets money from those who lose their chips early. If my father and his contemporaries made that gamble for the game of life surely he would have been given long odds of outlasting most pets let alone people he knew. In his earlier years he lit one Lucky Strike with another adding up to four packs a day, didn’t exercise, ate like a carnivore and kept distillers working overtime. Dozens of his friends, customers and employees who by default had healthier lifestyles are pushing daisies while Dad is still going strong. If you had made those side bets with the right odds you could balance the national budget. Happy 77th Pops.
There were several medical procedures my father had that would have been fatal had he lived in Canada or Great Britain because there is often a years-long wait for operations such heart bypass. Soon we may get nationalized health care which will ensure substandard care and higher costs. Foreigners come here for medical attention. When we adopt their system where will we and our loved ones go?
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
We Are All Socialist-Neo-Keynesian-Debtors Now
Who isn't an economic theorist nowadays? How did we all get to this rocky place that neither my generation nor my parents' recognize as a familar landscape? Who do we "blame"-- the white collar criminals, the corporate industrial debt complex, previous administrations, lax governmental regulation agencies, consumers, the wealthy, the poor?
During the flush years, many of us with green-hued consciences were horrified to witness an exponential increase in conspicuous consumption, teardowns replaced by cookie-cutter architecturally monstrous American dreams which should have never been realized, giant Humvees on the road, and exurban McMansion developments named after the natural environments they had replaced, such as "Hidden Creek" and "Shady Glen." It seemed that everything and everyone was on the fast track to more, bigger, more, bigger, more, more, more! And, now, everyone is hunkering down, not spending, and waiting it out. Thus, no money into the economy from consumers, less products needing to be manufactured, job layoffs resulting from decreased demand, and consequently less money in the hands of consumers...so less spending. The circle spirals downwards and downwards, driving unemployment to double digits, and it's all ultra-complicated by that nasty subprime mortgage-based securities debacle and a government-supported corporate industrial debt complex. Follow me?
Enter the Neo-Keynesians! If consumers aren't spending, and business isn't spending, who is going to get the economy rolling again? The government! I can't profess to understand all the subtleties of monetarism vs. Keynesian economics, but it makes sense to me that when stuck between a rock (the mounting and mounting and mounting national and personal debt) and a hard place (adding to that mountain of debt), you might have to choose the hard place in order to stop the Charybdis-like spiral we are now experiencing.
Promoting lax regulation and a free, unbridled market is what got us into this mess in the first place. At least, that's what this amateur economic theorist is hypothesizing. The market doesn't have a conscience, green or otherwise. Government has to serve that role. Am I advocating socialism and not capitalism? Who says the two have to be mutually exclusive? Perhaps we will utlize the best of each approach in order to set our priorities straight, and we'll spend our money on education, healthcare, shovel-ready capital improvement projects, and green energy technologies, and put people to work while improving our nation and society. Or, I guess we could just advocate what's been advocated for the past 8 years or so (gee, why so specific with the "8"?), and return to a culture of promoting irresponsible consumption and rampant deregulation. I dunno. What do you think?
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
(Albert Einstein)
During the flush years, many of us with green-hued consciences were horrified to witness an exponential increase in conspicuous consumption, teardowns replaced by cookie-cutter architecturally monstrous American dreams which should have never been realized, giant Humvees on the road, and exurban McMansion developments named after the natural environments they had replaced, such as "Hidden Creek" and "Shady Glen." It seemed that everything and everyone was on the fast track to more, bigger, more, bigger, more, more, more! And, now, everyone is hunkering down, not spending, and waiting it out. Thus, no money into the economy from consumers, less products needing to be manufactured, job layoffs resulting from decreased demand, and consequently less money in the hands of consumers...so less spending. The circle spirals downwards and downwards, driving unemployment to double digits, and it's all ultra-complicated by that nasty subprime mortgage-based securities debacle and a government-supported corporate industrial debt complex. Follow me?
Enter the Neo-Keynesians! If consumers aren't spending, and business isn't spending, who is going to get the economy rolling again? The government! I can't profess to understand all the subtleties of monetarism vs. Keynesian economics, but it makes sense to me that when stuck between a rock (the mounting and mounting and mounting national and personal debt) and a hard place (adding to that mountain of debt), you might have to choose the hard place in order to stop the Charybdis-like spiral we are now experiencing.
Promoting lax regulation and a free, unbridled market is what got us into this mess in the first place. At least, that's what this amateur economic theorist is hypothesizing. The market doesn't have a conscience, green or otherwise. Government has to serve that role. Am I advocating socialism and not capitalism? Who says the two have to be mutually exclusive? Perhaps we will utlize the best of each approach in order to set our priorities straight, and we'll spend our money on education, healthcare, shovel-ready capital improvement projects, and green energy technologies, and put people to work while improving our nation and society. Or, I guess we could just advocate what's been advocated for the past 8 years or so (gee, why so specific with the "8"?), and return to a culture of promoting irresponsible consumption and rampant deregulation. I dunno. What do you think?
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
(Albert Einstein)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Spending Bill - Part Two
Lost in the marketing campaign for the Stimulus Bill was a TV ad trumpeting how Harry Reid will get Nevada’s “fair share,” In my experience saying “I’ll pay my fair share” means you won’t. “I want my fair share” means you want more than your fair share. This makes the term vague and meaningless and therefore one of the most irritating in the language. It fits quite well in an ad by the most grating man in the Senate.
The Stimulus Bill includes money for infrastructure such as a high-speed rail from L.A. to Las Vegas which will surely have Sen. Reid’s name on it. It also includes money for ACORN’s bogus campaign registration efforts, money for the former Big Three automakers and a Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Yes, Harry Reid will get Nevada’s fair share thanks to the suckers in the rest of the nation who don’t have a Senate Leader.
We could pick apart the Stimulus Bill line by line but that would take years. No one’s read the thing and I don’t plan to be the first so we’ll look at the big picture. People pay through the nose to the federal government then hope that the elected help can keep out of prison long enough to get more back than they paid in. This is government today. We want government jobs, welfare, retirement, health care, roads, parks and big buildings all on the government dime and we want more than the neighboring state gets. Cutting out the middleman and letting us keep our own tax dollars doesn’t occur to us.
Deficit spending has been tried since the dawn of civilization and has never worked. When Rome was broke Caligula had a novel enterprise for raising funds by opening a brothel with the Senators’ wives employed as prostitutes. I would applaud something similar in Washington but please don’t put Barney Frank in charge. FDR spent wildly but saw manufacturing and unemployment at their worst four years after the New Deal started. Japan’s Lost Decade of the 1990’s saw a stagnant nation because of government intrusion.
If government involvement in the economy were effective we’d all be speaking Russian right now. Or German, North Korean or Cuban. We have the greatest nation and economic engine the world has ever seen and we’re shoveling sand in the gears.
The news reports usually feature anyone from President Obama to some wretched person on the street saying that we have to do something and do it now. But sometimes doing something is much worse than doing nothing. If I dig a hole in the yard today and fill it in tomorrow it would be doing something but don’t confuse it with progress, especially if I hit a gas line. Throwing borrowed money at make-work boondoggles is not the recipe to fix an economy but just the opposite.
The bonds that will finance this bill will be sold to investors in countries such as China until they’re unwilling or unable to buy them anymore. Instead of cancelling the spending we’ll just print money which will lead to hyperinflation. This bill will ensure each of us will get our fair share of economic pain.
The Stimulus Bill includes money for infrastructure such as a high-speed rail from L.A. to Las Vegas which will surely have Sen. Reid’s name on it. It also includes money for ACORN’s bogus campaign registration efforts, money for the former Big Three automakers and a Mob Museum in Las Vegas. Yes, Harry Reid will get Nevada’s fair share thanks to the suckers in the rest of the nation who don’t have a Senate Leader.
We could pick apart the Stimulus Bill line by line but that would take years. No one’s read the thing and I don’t plan to be the first so we’ll look at the big picture. People pay through the nose to the federal government then hope that the elected help can keep out of prison long enough to get more back than they paid in. This is government today. We want government jobs, welfare, retirement, health care, roads, parks and big buildings all on the government dime and we want more than the neighboring state gets. Cutting out the middleman and letting us keep our own tax dollars doesn’t occur to us.
Deficit spending has been tried since the dawn of civilization and has never worked. When Rome was broke Caligula had a novel enterprise for raising funds by opening a brothel with the Senators’ wives employed as prostitutes. I would applaud something similar in Washington but please don’t put Barney Frank in charge. FDR spent wildly but saw manufacturing and unemployment at their worst four years after the New Deal started. Japan’s Lost Decade of the 1990’s saw a stagnant nation because of government intrusion.
If government involvement in the economy were effective we’d all be speaking Russian right now. Or German, North Korean or Cuban. We have the greatest nation and economic engine the world has ever seen and we’re shoveling sand in the gears.
The news reports usually feature anyone from President Obama to some wretched person on the street saying that we have to do something and do it now. But sometimes doing something is much worse than doing nothing. If I dig a hole in the yard today and fill it in tomorrow it would be doing something but don’t confuse it with progress, especially if I hit a gas line. Throwing borrowed money at make-work boondoggles is not the recipe to fix an economy but just the opposite.
The bonds that will finance this bill will be sold to investors in countries such as China until they’re unwilling or unable to buy them anymore. Instead of cancelling the spending we’ll just print money which will lead to hyperinflation. This bill will ensure each of us will get our fair share of economic pain.
Spending Bill
Last year I saw a very interesting documentary about impending fiscal doom called I.O.U.S.A by David Walker, formerly Comptroller General and head of the General Accounting Office. The message was quite simple and uplifting: “We’re financially screwed.”
The nation’s largest short term problem is the financial crisis, except if you get blown up anytime soon. There is a huge budget deficit that gets piled on top of our national debt every year. This is being financed by selling bonds, mostly overseas, which will probably be paid back with cheap inflation-racked dollars.
Walker walks us through the history of deficits of this country which were built up in times of crisis and war and quickly paid back. Until now. The current debt problem isn't resulting from The Vietnam War, Reagan’s military spending, nor our excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a problem of “mandatory” spending which, unfortunately the military isn’t a part.
The FDR Administration saw the birth of government programs designed to finance your retirement and pay your medical bills. The amount spent per recipient and who the recipients are off-limits to the President’s veto pen as these laws are already on the books. “Reforming Social Security” has become political fighting words rather than igniting a serious talk about the root of the financial mess we’re in or whether the government should be paying for geezers’ golf lifestyles in Florida.
This supposedly compassionate “cradle to grave” nanny care is breaking us and we’re too busy playing Guitar Hero to notice. We see undigestable brain-numbing numbers like our $400 Billion annual deficit but fail to see that we have unfunded liabilities of $53 Trillion. That’s right, our national debt plus our retirements, doctor bills and general welfare will cost each of us – I don’t know because my calculator won’t run numbers that high.
In his campaign President Obama berated President Bush’s deficit spending as if Bush invented fiscal irresponsibility, yet signed a spending bill of $787 Billion with every nickel borrowed. In a not-so-rare moment of pretzel logic from John Kerry on the Senate floor speaking in favor of the bill essentially said, “Where were the Republicans the past eight years while we ran up these huge deficits in the first place?” The solution to a financial mess created by drunken spending must be to blow a boatload more.
The Walker documentary wasn’t exactly a blockbuster. On the opening weekend the wakeup call drew only me and four others to the theater.
The nation’s largest short term problem is the financial crisis, except if you get blown up anytime soon. There is a huge budget deficit that gets piled on top of our national debt every year. This is being financed by selling bonds, mostly overseas, which will probably be paid back with cheap inflation-racked dollars.
Walker walks us through the history of deficits of this country which were built up in times of crisis and war and quickly paid back. Until now. The current debt problem isn't resulting from The Vietnam War, Reagan’s military spending, nor our excursions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a problem of “mandatory” spending which, unfortunately the military isn’t a part.
The FDR Administration saw the birth of government programs designed to finance your retirement and pay your medical bills. The amount spent per recipient and who the recipients are off-limits to the President’s veto pen as these laws are already on the books. “Reforming Social Security” has become political fighting words rather than igniting a serious talk about the root of the financial mess we’re in or whether the government should be paying for geezers’ golf lifestyles in Florida.
This supposedly compassionate “cradle to grave” nanny care is breaking us and we’re too busy playing Guitar Hero to notice. We see undigestable brain-numbing numbers like our $400 Billion annual deficit but fail to see that we have unfunded liabilities of $53 Trillion. That’s right, our national debt plus our retirements, doctor bills and general welfare will cost each of us – I don’t know because my calculator won’t run numbers that high.
In his campaign President Obama berated President Bush’s deficit spending as if Bush invented fiscal irresponsibility, yet signed a spending bill of $787 Billion with every nickel borrowed. In a not-so-rare moment of pretzel logic from John Kerry on the Senate floor speaking in favor of the bill essentially said, “Where were the Republicans the past eight years while we ran up these huge deficits in the first place?” The solution to a financial mess created by drunken spending must be to blow a boatload more.
The Walker documentary wasn’t exactly a blockbuster. On the opening weekend the wakeup call drew only me and four others to the theater.
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