Here's the chart again -- let's see if it works this time. And in all that long foolishness, I neglected one question about what would have happened had we not bailed out GM and Wall St. I really don't know. But in principle, I think the government should stay away from getting involved with private enterprise. If it fails it fails. The problem is that one could say the failure came about by way of government intervention to begin with, through Fannie/Freddie, so they (Bush, anyway) felt a need to fix what he had helped damage?
Monday, December 12, 2011
Here's the chart again -- let's see if it works this time. And in all that long foolishness, I neglected one question about what would have happened had we not bailed out GM and Wall St. I really don't know. But in principle, I think the government should stay away from getting involved with private enterprise. If it fails it fails. The problem is that one could say the failure came about by way of government intervention to begin with, through Fannie/Freddie, so they (Bush, anyway) felt a need to fix what he had helped damage?
Politics and the Economy
Some of my friends and I have been talking about the political landscape on FB, and since my replies are getting longer and longer, I have answered here instead. The most recent posts were:
I'm curious. If we are to oppose a nuclear Iran, albeit with better information than we had when we went into Iraq, how can we do this without increasing spending? It's to a large degree this defense spending over the last 8 years that has put us in our current financial position. This is what troubles me about the Republican candidates; like Bush in 2000 (in the initiatives Ted notes), their claims for change have to be backed up with money, so their limited government ambitions are countered by their political aims. Paul would basically be arguing for an isolationist standpoint, so he's the only one who could back up his claims with a political ideology.
And what would have happened if Obama had not bailed out GM and Wall Street? I mean both on the short term and the long term? Do you think really think the free market would have bailed them out?
Would appreciate your thoughts.
and another:
Ron Paul knows exactly what to do to fix our financial crisis and has no other political aims that would stop him from doing so. Our economy and the world economy are the #1 issue right now and no other candidate aside from Paul has shown me that they will make the hard decisions to correct the mistakes that has put us in the horrible position we are in now.
These are great questions - thanks for making this a real discussion, you all. Andy, I think opposing a nuclear Iran right now will save us a lot of defense dept spending down the road as we wouldn't then have to fight another 10-year lite war as we did in Iraq. Some of the candidates have mentioned ways to restrict Iran without spending war-levels of money. (gasoline embargoes, et c). We can't pretend not to be a super-power (as I think it is clear Ron Paul's isolationism would have us do) but still we can listen very carefully to Paul's proposals, as well as Rick Santorum's -- each knows a great deal and has a lot of good advice, even if it is opposite in content. They are good men. You are right that Paul's position is consistent and clear - but it is mistaken, I believe. I am with him on the Constitution and the economy, but not on foreign policy. If we could have stopped Hitler in 1937, should we have done it?
One more point about the Iraq and Afghan wars -- I don't agree that they were the cause of our financial woes today. The combination of those two wars since 2003 doesn't come close to the spending lost through the housing crisis. "The sum of all the deficits from 2003 through 2010 is $4.73 trillion. Subtract the entire Iraq War cost and you still have a sum of $4.02 trillion." (that is from this write up on the issue ---- http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/iraq_the_war_that_broke_us_not.html.) The federal budgets were in the hands of the Dems since FY 2008, and the increase in spending is head-spinning. Bush added $4T to the deficit in 8 years, and Obama added that much in 2. Each should have to answer to the American people for their gross mis-management of our tax dollars, I think. But as to the war - the entire Iraq War, from 2003 to fall of 2011 cost $709B. In the first few months of Obama's term, the Dem-controlled congress spent more than that on one stimulus package. This is just the truth. Here's the chart:
SO about the bailouts, I am surely not an expert in this field, so I don't know what to suggest -- I AM an expert about my own household economy (not that I handle it well, only that I know more about it than anyone else...), and I find that when I spend more than I make I get into trouble. I would assume that the principle extends to governments as well (and I hold Greece and Spain up as examples). I think there has been a very sincere attempt on the part of many well-meaning people to do something good for those in need, namely help more low-income people into houses and out of renting. However, it was a little like trying to help more people get where they are going faster by getting them to flap their arms and jump off high buildings. It may seem like a good goal, but it doesn't take reality into consideration. So - we had a lot of people hitting the economic pavement at terminal velocity. It didn't matter to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd - they were receiving kickbacks from Fannie and Freddie to write the laws to exempt the mortgage houses from careful scrutiny. (If the Occupy WS folks really wanted to address corruption, all they would have to do is read the books being written on the Fannie/Freddie horrors.) Countrywide made out well for a long time...but then Wall St bundled those bad debts and sold them to unsuspecting investors, spreading the disease around the world, and THIS is the reason we have such a terrible economy now, and that's why Bush and Obama felt the need to spend the the breathtakingly huge amounts in bailouts. The Dems passed spending bills without the need for a single Republican vote in 2009, including the Obama health care bill (that came in at $1T all by itself, and they now say was grossly under estimated). This is the reason why the Dems lost the House and nearly the Senate in 2010. I think that (if the country doesn't have short-term memory loss) the House and the Senate and the WH will be in Republican hands this time next year.
I'm curious. If we are to oppose a nuclear Iran, albeit with better information than we had when we went into Iraq, how can we do this without increasing spending? It's to a large degree this defense spending over the last 8 years that has put us in our current financial position. This is what troubles me about the Republican candidates; like Bush in 2000 (in the initiatives Ted notes), their claims for change have to be backed up with money, so their limited government ambitions are countered by their political aims. Paul would basically be arguing for an isolationist standpoint, so he's the only one who could back up his claims with a political ideology.
And what would have happened if Obama had not bailed out GM and Wall Street? I mean both on the short term and the long term? Do you think really think the free market would have bailed them out?
Would appreciate your thoughts.
and another:
Ron Paul knows exactly what to do to fix our financial crisis and has no other political aims that would stop him from doing so. Our economy and the world economy are the #1 issue right now and no other candidate aside from Paul has shown me that they will make the hard decisions to correct the mistakes that has put us in the horrible position we are in now.
These are great questions - thanks for making this a real discussion, you all. Andy, I think opposing a nuclear Iran right now will save us a lot of defense dept spending down the road as we wouldn't then have to fight another 10-year lite war as we did in Iraq. Some of the candidates have mentioned ways to restrict Iran without spending war-levels of money. (gasoline embargoes, et c). We can't pretend not to be a super-power (as I think it is clear Ron Paul's isolationism would have us do) but still we can listen very carefully to Paul's proposals, as well as Rick Santorum's -- each knows a great deal and has a lot of good advice, even if it is opposite in content. They are good men. You are right that Paul's position is consistent and clear - but it is mistaken, I believe. I am with him on the Constitution and the economy, but not on foreign policy. If we could have stopped Hitler in 1937, should we have done it?
One more point about the Iraq and Afghan wars -- I don't agree that they were the cause of our financial woes today. The combination of those two wars since 2003 doesn't come close to the spending lost through the housing crisis. "The sum of all the deficits from 2003 through 2010 is $4.73 trillion. Subtract the entire Iraq War cost and you still have a sum of $4.02 trillion." (that is from this write up on the issue ---- http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/iraq_the_war_that_broke_us_not.html.) The federal budgets were in the hands of the Dems since FY 2008, and the increase in spending is head-spinning. Bush added $4T to the deficit in 8 years, and Obama added that much in 2. Each should have to answer to the American people for their gross mis-management of our tax dollars, I think. But as to the war - the entire Iraq War, from 2003 to fall of 2011 cost $709B. In the first few months of Obama's term, the Dem-controlled congress spent more than that on one stimulus package. This is just the truth. Here's the chart:
SO about the bailouts, I am surely not an expert in this field, so I don't know what to suggest -- I AM an expert about my own household economy (not that I handle it well, only that I know more about it than anyone else...), and I find that when I spend more than I make I get into trouble. I would assume that the principle extends to governments as well (and I hold Greece and Spain up as examples). I think there has been a very sincere attempt on the part of many well-meaning people to do something good for those in need, namely help more low-income people into houses and out of renting. However, it was a little like trying to help more people get where they are going faster by getting them to flap their arms and jump off high buildings. It may seem like a good goal, but it doesn't take reality into consideration. So - we had a lot of people hitting the economic pavement at terminal velocity. It didn't matter to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd - they were receiving kickbacks from Fannie and Freddie to write the laws to exempt the mortgage houses from careful scrutiny. (If the Occupy WS folks really wanted to address corruption, all they would have to do is read the books being written on the Fannie/Freddie horrors.) Countrywide made out well for a long time...but then Wall St bundled those bad debts and sold them to unsuspecting investors, spreading the disease around the world, and THIS is the reason we have such a terrible economy now, and that's why Bush and Obama felt the need to spend the the breathtakingly huge amounts in bailouts. The Dems passed spending bills without the need for a single Republican vote in 2009, including the Obama health care bill (that came in at $1T all by itself, and they now say was grossly under estimated). This is the reason why the Dems lost the House and nearly the Senate in 2010. I think that (if the country doesn't have short-term memory loss) the House and the Senate and the WH will be in Republican hands this time next year.
Why does it need to be so difficult? The reason that Europe is going under financially, and the USA is not far behind, is that countries have decided to care for the poor through the government rather than through the Church. When the Church cares for the poor, the poor are given a much larger gift than simply food or money. When the government is first told that it can have no religious affiliation, then is told it must be compassionate, it cannot help but offer only short-term material benefit, and so has no hope of getting the better of the problem. The church offers spiritual help as well as material help, and the Church offers the possibility of membership in a community - a community of people who are dedicated to living their lives for God instead of for themselves. This one aspect would disallow an individual to remain on welfare for very long.
Say you had a classmate who could never get his papers written on time, and regularly asked to copy yours and turn them in as his own. What if you had actually agreed to do this several times? Wouldn't you eventually try to explain to him that it actually would be better for him in the long run to get his own C than to get your A? Can you imagine how you would feel if a majority of your classmates and teachers sided with him arguing that they couldn't see how a C is better than an A in any way, so you should be more compassionate and let him copy your work each week? This is what it sounds like to those who are already paying most of the nation's taxes when politicians tell them, "you have to pay your fair share." The amount considered "fair" is not based on how much an individual should be required to contribute to the government, rather it is based on how much the individual will have left over compared to those who are less well-off. It is as though an equal amount of money for each citizen is a right that can be enforced by the government. Our ancestors called this tyranny. I don't believe that replacing the current president with another will solve this problem, but if he were replaced, it would be a sign that our country may have what it takes to survive this world-wide economic madness, and might be able to show the EU an alternative to the welfare state. If we all agreed that we mustn't bankrupt our government, and drastically reduced our spending in nearly every area, we would all be motivated to find an alternative to provide help for those in need - an alternative that would have to take a person's entire humanity into consideration, as the Church does.
Say you had a classmate who could never get his papers written on time, and regularly asked to copy yours and turn them in as his own. What if you had actually agreed to do this several times? Wouldn't you eventually try to explain to him that it actually would be better for him in the long run to get his own C than to get your A? Can you imagine how you would feel if a majority of your classmates and teachers sided with him arguing that they couldn't see how a C is better than an A in any way, so you should be more compassionate and let him copy your work each week? This is what it sounds like to those who are already paying most of the nation's taxes when politicians tell them, "you have to pay your fair share." The amount considered "fair" is not based on how much an individual should be required to contribute to the government, rather it is based on how much the individual will have left over compared to those who are less well-off. It is as though an equal amount of money for each citizen is a right that can be enforced by the government. Our ancestors called this tyranny. I don't believe that replacing the current president with another will solve this problem, but if he were replaced, it would be a sign that our country may have what it takes to survive this world-wide economic madness, and might be able to show the EU an alternative to the welfare state. If we all agreed that we mustn't bankrupt our government, and drastically reduced our spending in nearly every area, we would all be motivated to find an alternative to provide help for those in need - an alternative that would have to take a person's entire humanity into consideration, as the Church does.
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