Isn’t it nice to hear just one voice of sanity amongst the insane?
Amid all the political and media hysteria, national output has declined by less than one-half of one percent. In fact, it may not have declined even that much– or at all– when the statistics are revised later, as they very often are.
We are not talking about the Great Depression, when output dropped by one-third and unemployment soared to 25 percent.
What we are talking about is a golden political opportunity for politicians to use the current financial crisis to fundamentally change an economy that has been successful for more than two centuries, so that politicians can henceforth micro-manage all sorts of businesses and play Robin Hood, taking from those who are not likely to vote for them and transferring part of their earnings to those who will vote for them.
For that, the politicians need lots of hype, and that is being generously supplied by the media.
~~~Much as we may deplore partisanship in Washington, bipartisan disasters are often twice as bad as partisan disasters– and this is a bipartisan disaster in the making.
Too many people who argue that there is a beneficial role for the government to play in the economy glide swiftly from that to the conclusion that the government will in fact confine itself to playing such a role.
In the light of history, this is a faith which passeth all understanding. Even in the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, increasing numbers of economists and historians who have looked back at that era have concluded that, on net balance, government intervention prolonged the Great Depression.
The politicians are using this “crisis” as not only a means to micro-manage, but to gain more power:
Modern Washington owes its very existence to the 1929 crash, which occasioned a vast expansion of the federal government under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A legacy of the increase in federal power during that era, largely undiminished during a 28-year electoral backlash against big government, is that Washington became Wall Street’s principal rival when it came to running the world. Which wielded more power—the financial markets or the government? Uncle Sam had the world’s largest military, but Wall Street had all that goddamned money.
~~~For Wall Street, a way of life may be coming to an end. For Washington, a new era of government activism has already begun. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, after presiding over an unprecedented sequence of receiverships, bailouts, and liquidations, is urging Congress to commit up to $700 billion to unfreeze the credit markets. The CEOs of once-powerful investment banks will be called down to Congress and subjected to humiliating questions. Journalists will sign six-figure contracts to write books about the events of what is already being dubbed “Black September.” Think-tankers will hold conferences to fight over the proper role government should assume in the new financial world. The Washington Post—which, like all big-city dailies, has been experiencing some circulation difficulty—will sell more papers than it would otherwise. Presidential candidates are already demanding, and will probably receive, curbs on CEO pay as a condition of restoring liquidity to Wall Street.
~~~…On Wall Street, financial crisis destroys jobs. Here in Washington, it creates them. The rest is just details.
And just as Obama said he “will hit the ground running,” so is the next act in this power struggle:
Together, the programs from the Federal Reserve and the New York Fed aim to dump $800 billion in additional funds into the struggling U.S. economy, more than Congress approved in October for a bailout of the nation’s banks and Wall Street firms.
What’s another 800 billion or so right?
Sigh….
See author page
Hopefully the next president is Reaganesque and will undo much of what the obamination has done.
The CEOs of once-powerful investment banks will be called down to Congress and subjected to humiliating questions
Only some of them. Shearson Lehman (once a rival of Goldman Sachs) got, and the automakers of Detroit may get this treatment. Those that are friends of the well-connected won’t have to endure this kind of farce and will just get handed money by Paulson.
Hopefully the next president is Reaganesque and will undo much of what the obamination has done.
Obama hasn’t done a damn thing yet (OK, he’s made some cabinet choices, but he has no real power til January). I can see that your mind is already busy at work trying to reorder events so that this catastrophe is somehow attributed to him, but the timeline is a little inconvenient.
As for the Slate article, its depiction of a conflict between Wall Street and Washington is about as convincing as a WWF pro wrestling match. I’m sure both Goldman Sachs and Congress would love for us to take sides in that fake contest and ignore the fact that they just conspired to loot a trillion dollars from the public pocket. They are both on the same side.
It’s become clear to me watching this thing unfold that the powerbrokers of Wall Street regard free market advocates as useful fools and have no such convictions themselves. Inasfar as politics is the art of the possible I think I have to start regarding my own support of the free market as something akin to a nostalgia for the Paris Commune or Icelandic anarchocapitalism; the existence of a ‘pro free market’ faction in Congress (aka Republicans) is a pretext for corporate malfeasance without any chance of actual freedom from taxation (deferring the bill to my daughter doesn’t count).
Not that Obama and his gang of criminals will be any better. But at least I think I will stop wasting my time on politics, rather than provide support for thieves like Bernanke and Paulson.
Here is a good article on the subject:
FDR’s Policies Prolonged Depression By 7 Years, UCLA Economists Calculate
“The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes,” Cole said. “Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened.”
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx?RelNum=5409
bbart, INRE you comment:
Doesn’t appear to be that way, guy. The stock market rallies when Congress even hints at a bailout… When the free market advocates say “let them fail”, as it’s part of the cleaning cycle, it falls.
Frankly, with the debt the big three are carrying now, bankruptcy and debt forgiveness would give them a better starting point for increased profitability. But Congress and Obama do not appear to see that as an option in the next admin.
This is the perfect reason why the 3 American automobile giants should not be bailed out. You will see in this video (that everybody should watch), why USA will never have such a successful plant. Why? What is the problem? Just watch it. The answer is at the end of the video:
Ford’s Camaçari Plant
“I can see that your mind is already busy at work trying to reorder events so that this catastrophe is somehow attributed to him, but the timeline is a little inconvenient.” — bbart
You’re joking, right? I mean, he is an integral part of the problem, and has been ever since he used to sue banks for ACORN to force them to comply with CRA.
http://www.mediacircus.com/2008/10/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/
Besides, his appointees are the Flotsam and Jetsam of failed administrations past. (Charles Dickens would have another best seller if he were still around) And the losers like Barney Frank, Pelosi Reid and all the Democrat idiots will still be around to muck things up.
You really have to be slugging the kookaide down pretty heavily to think that a bunch of socialists with a prior history of corruption and incompetence …
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/11/obama-crooks-lo.html
… aren’t going to screw up the one of the best economies in the world, probably beyond repair.
Even though Obama’s contribution was more from the sidlines, until he got to Congress, he still contributed. But now he’s really going to go crazy, and with the folks in his party who caused all the problems still around,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBRIsCkGQ0
he will make an even greater mess than we’ve seen to date. Serious financial trouble is not far away.
As to the Republicans, they certainly could have tried harder when they had the chance, but even when they did the Dems were powerful enough to obstruct the changes they did try to make.
And, yeah, you’re right about Obama and his gang being a bunch of crooks. What was America thinking?!
Craig, thanks for that link. I saw something about that yesterday, but was so tired I can’t remember now where.
Well, as of now, the Bush Administration has spent more money on bailing out the economy than the costs of the Marshall Plan, Korean War, The S&L Crisis and the Iraq War all together and adjusted for inflation. That great “Reagan economy” was much like a Oak Tree that was hollowed out from the inside and left to blow over in a storm.
Ummmm blast, you and bbart deliberately ignore what the dems and obama did to intefere with capitalism, oversight, and cause these problems. Your denial of reality is pathological.
BTW, Bbart you must be deliberately blind or quite naive to think obama won’t try to push socialist policies and the effect that will have on the economy. Enjoy your kool-aid.
Are you saying, George Bush, who had some of the highest public opinion polls, while the Republicans having both Houses of Congress… and they could come back into session to deal with Terri Schievo, but yet could not fix all the black magic the Democrats did to the economy? What ever happened to “The Buck Stops Here?” Lets face it, we can spend a lot of time “spreading the blame” but the person responsible to the American People was the President. So the Commander and Chief of the United States is where I place the majority of the blame. This Republican government gave us the largest growth in government since the Great Society and the largest debt in US history. They were/are fiscally totally out of control. I am glad they were voted out of office. President Obama will have his chance and I will wait to see what he does (verses just attack for no reason like many here do).
“… but the person responsible to the American People was the President. So the Commander and Chief of the United States is where I place the majority of the blame.” (Blast)
Stop BLASTing absurdites here and go get yourself a Political education 101. Please!
blast, I also am highly disgruntled about this bailout trend started by the Bush admin…. on the advice of Paulson and Bernanke. I am also aware that polls indicate I am not alone in my distaste for this “cure” to the economic ills.
But … using Obama’s favorite expression… “let’s be clear”. This is the culmination of bad policy by career Congress members prior to the Bush admin. The pebble started rolling down the mountain on one POTUS’s watch, and landed as an avalanche under Bush’s watch. I can’t blame him for the avalanche, but I can criticize him for the clean up.
And while we’re talking about that clean up, this bailout is the baby of the unholy alliance of the Bush admin and his investment banker Treasury Dept, 100% of the DNC, and far too many of the GOP. There were, in the beginning, a few GOP holdouts suspicious of the original bailout… including McCain. They all ultimately caved… including McCain.
So in fact, you may be trying to blame the big spending solely on Bush and his admin, but it was done with the enthusiasm of the entire DNC, and the more reluctant majority of the GOP in Congress.
Remember it is not Presidents who control the purse strings, but Congress. So I am always amused at those who like to say this admin (or any, for that matter) was a big spender…. for he could not do so without the consent of Congress. And these past two elections prove that there are many of us conservatives who were appalled at the fiscal irresponsibility of the GOP Congress. We call them RINOs and CINOs, and now are labeled radical “right wing” for doing so.
But while you rejoice in their departure, be careful what you are welcoming in with open arms. For based on Obama’s transition speeches and actions, he embraces that big spending with even *more* open arms…. and he’s backed by the very people (Pelosi/Reid) who railroaded the original “emergency” bailout thru on Bush/Paulson/Bernanke’s behalf. A group who may have virtually unchecked power in the legislative branch.
We may have just jumped from the frying pan into a bonfire, instead of a small hearth fire, with this choice. But then, either POTUS choice… because they are Senators who come from the very body that has no fiscal control… were fiscally deplorable IMHO.
Personally, I hope for a major flip flopper president who campaigned on Karl Marx, and ends up governing like Ronald Reagan. And yes… I’ve already sent my Christmas list to Santa Claus too. LOL
you and bbart deliberately ignore what the dems and obama did to intefere with capitalism, oversight, and cause these problems
I’m aware of the CRA issue, and I know there was a half-hearted (failed) attempt by Bush and Congress to introduce some additional oversight for Fannie and Freddie in 2003 (why this would have been more successful than the existing 200 or so government employees already employed to be watchdogs for this purpose is unclear). But I don’t buy the narrative that this is only source of the problem. The ability to securitize bad debts, pass them off to another party, *and leave the taxpayer holding the bag when the game is up* is also an issue. If you’re going to let poison spread through the system, ultimately you have to let those companies that were not wary enough take a fall, so that justice is served and incentives for more responsible behavior are maintained.
In this case both the left and right at least have a consistent position where responsibility and authority fall to the same party: private enterprise (right) or government (left). Supporting the bailout but opposing increased government regulation of banks and/or the debt market makes no sense, as that would just guarantee more of the same behavior. But this seems to be the position that centrist Republicans are taking.
Also, encouraging irresponsibility at the FHA is a bipartisan game. Here’s a look at another piece of the puzzle, down payment fraud. In a moment of sanity, Congress in July passed a bill that among other things banned seller-assisted downpayment schemes (notice, this is a DEMOCRAT Congress, managing to do at least one useful thing that somehow eluded our Republicans for 6+ years).
Now of course this is a problem for various housing speculators, homebuilders and others, so they’ve sent their servants in Congress to try to reverse this sensible provision. Who? Perennial miscreants Maxine Waters (D) and Al Green (D), but also Christopher Shays (R) and Gary Miller (R).
The stock market rallies when Congress even hints at a bailout… When the free market advocates say “let them fail”, as it’s part of the cleaning cycle, it falls.
It’s unclear how this addresses my point, but it’s hardly surprising that having Congress buy hundreds of billions of bad debt via the TARP would indeed help corporate valuations. You seem to have fallen in to some modern variation of the fallacy ‘what’s good for GM is good for America’; instead you seem to be saying ‘what’s good for the stock market is good for the American economy’. Obviously the market is a barometer of future corporate profits, all else being equal, so seeing it rise is normally a good sign – but it doesn’t follow that making it rise by throwing money at it is also a positive indicator.
you must be deliberately blind or quite naive to think obama won’t try to push socialist policies and the effect that will have on the economy
Volcker, Romer and Goolsbee are all very much centrist picks, and frankly suggest that Obama realizes we’re in deep shit economically and that he needs actual competence and not just leftist apparatchiks on his team. Obviously we have to worry about the damage to be done by his need to pay off all his constituencies, but it looks to me like he doesn’t mind leaving some of them out in the cold if it’s convenient. You make it sound like he appointed Howard Zinn or something.
There were, in the beginning, a few GOP holdouts suspicious of the original bailout… including McCain. They all ultimately caved…
There was one who didn’t. And the thing that really makes my day is that I don’t even need to search the voting record or Google to make that assertion. The vote could be tomorrow and I could safely bet on it.
Actually of course there were many other Republicans besides Ron Paul who voted against the bailout. Even some Dems I imagine; poor people don’t like Wall Street bailouts either.
So bbart you read something into my first post that wasn’t said. I will clarify for you. This debacle is primarily the fault of the dems-and a few in particular. The dems got the ball rolling and then blocked efforts to stop the coming train wreck. The fact it was a cash cow for them had nothing to do with it, I’m suuuuure. Yes, the GOP had a majority. However it wasn’t by a large margin. Add in the RINOs and that’s all it took to tip the balance. As far as the DEMOCRAT congress passing the bill, tell me, how many Republicans were involved in supporting it? Was there some down the line party vote by the GOP to oppose it? Didn’t think so. That’s the difference between the reps and the dems. If the other side has a good idea they will support it regardless of politics. The dems do not do this as a matter of policy.
I notice you missed his leftist picks and tout the ones you approve of.
You can trumpet his “centrist” picks all you want, but the fact is obama is at his core a socialist. He will move left as soon as he is able and the results will be a disaster. You can bet on that.
Craig, I find in interesting you only can insult other people and not actually present a cogent argument.
MataHarley,
No doubt there is ample blame to go around, but the fact is this crisis is on President Bush’s watch. We started the crisis with $10 Trillion in national debt, much of which was created under Bush and Republican majorities. It was not like the country was healthy before the crash began.
Maybe after 4, 8, or 12 years out of power the Republicans will learn how to be Republicans again… but first they need to take responsibility for their failure.
Hard Right,
Ugh. Just take responsibility! They had the White House and the majority, what more do you need.
blast, he must not feel you are worth “arguing” with. Can’t say I blame him.
@bbartlog:
BBART PAYS HOMAGE TO RON PAUL
So, your a RonPaulian? LOL I should have guessed, because I can smell the incense from here.
And, no, he’s not a Conservative, and no, he’s not a real Republican, either, which is probably why so many screwballs support him. (See also here)
In short, Ron Paul is a Little Obama with training wheels.
@blast:
“Ugh. Just take responsibility! They had the White House and the majority, what more do you need.”
And your point would be….?
Do you think the fact that they didn’t succeed, presumably because they didn’t try hard enough (even though no effort on their part may have brought success), in opposing Democrat corruption and incompetence, that they should now be replaced by even more corrupt and incompetent Democrats? I hope that’s not what you are arguing for, because it is just plain dumb.
blast, there are many things I agree with Paul on. Not enough to make my candidate, mind you… but he has some good points. And I’ve always liked have the “ron pauls” in Congress as a great counterbalance.
But let’s try to put things in more accurate perspective. Yes.. the crisis started with a $10 tril national deficit. When you start talking inflation, plus the deficit rise under Clinton respective (link to historical US debt graph below) all starts to come into perspective.
Now consider that Clinton’s admin (for his deficit rise) didn’t have a 911, and hadn’t hit the full impact of the oncoming recession yet. Frankly the rise… while appalling on all levels compared to decades before… doesn’t look so out of whack. So please don’t be building political mountains out of mole hills. Frankly, I am on your side that most D & R politicians aren’t worth the water they drink daily. But we aren’t talking a mountain of difference here from the 90s to now.
Which now brings us to the “blame game” or the “cure”?
If you want to be correct in the blame game, it is bipartisan, long term Congress. So unless you can figure out a way for those in power to limit their terms, we peon constituents are screwed.
The “cure” is to muddy the Congressional waters enough so that one radical wing doesn’t get power over another.
And for now… we’re in “hold” pattern to see if Obama is a Karl Marx, or a Reagan-in-disguise-because-of-desperation.
So, your a RonPaulian
You could say that. I don’t agree with him on everything, but I supported him in the primary and admire his consistency and dedication to principle. Of course, ‘RonPaulian’ is just aimed at evoking cultishness, not really at describing my views…
And, no, he’s not a Conservative
No? The ACU provides reasonably objective ratings of ‘conservatism’, and gives Paul an 82 or 83. Not the gold standard (there are others, like Tancredo, who consistently score in the high 90s) – but let’s keep in mind that Clinton, Obama and Maxine Waters got scores of 9, 8, and 0 respectively. You can really only exclude Paul by playing semantic games where conservatism means exactly what *you* want it to mean.
no, he’s not a real Republican, either
Barnhart is just pissy because Paul wouldn’t come on his show. He should probably stick to doing that instead of writing, too, because his writing is awful. Anyway, his main complaint seems to be that Paul endorsed Baldwin rather than McCain (the rest is just miscellaneous observations and whining). Yes, Paul is at the fringe of the party in many ways. In the end he still won his district running as a Republican, and as far as I know neither you nor Barnhart are the official judges of who is and isn’t a ‘real’ Republican.
Ron Paul is a Little Obama with training wheels
Either you don’t actually follow politics closely (see the ACU ratings above) or else you are a single-issue voter on one of the handful of issues where Paul and Obama agree. Actually, now that Obama has done a center-left move I can no longer think of a single issue where they would agree (maybe Gitmo?).
For example, you can read what he has to say about the bailout(s). Not much common ground there between Obama and Paul (by comparison, both Tancredo and McCain supported the bailout, along with Obama as expected).
As of this comment I can’t actually see Mata’s entire graph, but since it seems to show the national debt I would like to point out that our current problems are actually not closely tied to the size of the federal deficit. Also, graphing the deficit as a percentage of GDP is a better representation, even if it lacks the hockey-stick character and makes Clinton look good.
The federal deficit is a problem (though not near as big as the fedgov’s future entitlement obligations), but the current crisis has more to do with the second graph in this set. Or see also here. American household debt and financial sector debt have exploded. Looking strictly at the household side of things (because I don’t yet understand the financial sector side, which however is comparable in size), we have about $9 trillion in extra debt above the ‘good’ levels of 1962-1975, and nearly $5 trillion in excess above what we had in 2000.
The funny thing is that most people you hear talk about this seem to think that we can avoid catastrophe if we just follow their policies. Maybe we need another Reagan! A bigger bailout! More liquidity to unseize the credit markets and get loans flowing again! But the excess debt represents an absolutely unavoidable catastrophe; all policy can do is determine its shape. You can put the choices into three categories:
– pay off the debt and let government stabilize things. Ten to twenty years of belt-tightening all around, plus lots of corporate failures and lost profits due to low consumption. We’ll call this ‘Depression II’. If the bailouts all go through and are handled well, this is probably what we get.
– do nothing and let much of the debt go to default (and it will, look how big the problems already are *before* we enter recession); banks will fail, credit companies will fail, anyone who is holding a lot of mortgage debt securities or securities backed by credit card debt is dead meat. Lots of people lose their life savings, probably somewhat at random depending on the exposure of companies in their portfolio. Recovery is probably faster than 1), above, but short term uncertainty is much higher (maybe a little like 1873).
– increase the money supply so that all debts are rapidly reduced in real terms by high inflation. You need to increase the money supply a lot. Five years of 20% inflation might do the job, but the problems that would cause are also enormous. Anyone who is currently holding debt in dollars would be screwed (not just mortgage / credit card debt securities as for #2), along with people who hold cash, are on fixed incomes, and so on. Existing debtors would be happy, but it would probably be a generation before the credit markets recovered.
Take your pick. There’s a small chance that Paulson et. al. can pull off the same trick as Greenspan and extend the credit spree a couple more years, but ultimately we will face one of the scenarios outlined above or some hybrid. You can’t just make $9 trillion in excess debt disappear, no matter how good your policies are.
MataHarley, Nice comment. I am not here to defend the democrats or republicans. The issue today is who is leading us right now, not 8 years go or 50 years ago. There are plenty of salient points to be made when illustrating different issues over time and some can be useful and instructive. Will history say “oh, that crisis was caused by Barney Frank” NO, and why? Because he was not elected president, he was not leader of our nation. Frank will be a mere footnote if remembered at all.
The tenor of the comments and posts here tend to just slam the Democrats and demonize the incoming administration without first taking to full task to those who were most in power TODAY. The thing is, if the evils that have been placed on the democrats as being most culpable are true, why the heck didn’t Bush do something to change it? I can say the same of the democrats as well but they were not the party in charge so their culpability is much lower (but I still would call them out as well). There were plenty of whistles around and not many blowing them. But… it does not change the fact that President Bush had a near Carte Blanche to get many of the things he wanted and yet FAILED to do so. One of the privileges of rank means you also get a large share of the blame and rightfully so.
Bush was talking about the fundamentals of the economy being strong from 02 on, and unluckily McCain repeated that same rhetoric. I can certainly respect that some of the rise of the deficit could have been tied to the recession at the beginning of his term, and even a touch of 9/11 as well, but at what point do you say ENOUGH is ENOUGH and call his administration a total economic failure.
Remember the problem with China at the beginning of his administration when they held a crew of an American military reconnaissance plane captive? What he do? Nothing except ask China for a loan by allowing the yuan (China’s currency) to be undervalued for YEARS and in the process exporting our national security future and importing a bunch of trinkets.
Seems we have one of those periodic Paulbot outbursts!
This is odd.
“The thing is, if the evils that have been placed on the democrats as being most culpable are true, why the heck didn’t Bush do something to change it?” (Blast)
LOL! Politic 101 would help you understand and maybe give you an answer.
Craig, is this your MO? Is this all you can bring???? Come on… send another useless snide ignorant comment. Grow up.
“Is that all you can bring?” (Blast)
NO. I can bring so much more. But I would have to start so far back for you to understand, I wouldn’t know where to start. This is why I suggest to you a Political 101. After that, we could maybe exchange. This is not an insult, it is a good advice for you.
Figures, more lame pablum. Immature.
@bbartlog:
“The ACU provides reasonably objective ratings of ‘conservatism’, and gives Paul an 82 or 83.”
I’ll have to go over there and check it out, because his voting record doesn’t confirm that.
Out of 100 votes
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/p000583/votes/
he…
(1) …voted with the Reps 53 times, and against 29. (53*100)/(53+29) = 64.6% pro-Republican
(2) …voted with the Dems 14 times, and against 65. (65*100)/(65+14) = 82.3% anti-Democrat
Looks like their measure of his “conservatism” might be his moderately strong opposition to Democrats rather than his luke warm support of his own party?
Your going to have to do better than make unsubstantiated claims.
UPDATE- hold the phone… here’s something interesting.
LOL! I guess we know whose “buying it” don’t we bbart. Nice try, though.
REALITY CHECK
Ron Paul’s “conservatism” . . . . NOT!
One Conservative’s Top Ten (- 1) list of objections to Ron Paul
He’s a quirky Libertarian (as most I’ve either read about or known). Deal with it.
blast… INRE your
I’m going to have to disagree with you here. Fact is the majority of those “leading” us today are the same as the past decades… meaning Congress. They hold the purse strings. They create the legislation and regulations. They dole out the cash. All a POTUS can do is say yes, or no. If he wants legislation intro’d to the floor, he must get a Congressional member to write it up and introduce it.
Too many place too much power in the hands of the POTUS when it comes to this stuff. His veto power is not usurped by the construction and details of the bill. Virtually everthing that is going on with the economy today can be traced back to Congress and their poorly constructed legislation.
bbart… I’m away from my own computer set up and couldn’t accommodate for the size of the photo. So I just provided a link… tho it appears you don’t want to see it anyway. But it was provided in response to blast’s comment #16.
But I do agree…. I don’t think it’s a healthy thing to get people to again spend. In the 90s the household debt was getting out of control. Fact is, people… and our Congress… need to learn to live within the budget they have – not the budget they wish they had. Fiscal responsibility is a lost art in both personal and government.
Any fix will just postpone the bullet we will inevitably have to bite…. and possibly prolong the recouperation period. We should just get it over with… but I don’t see that as likely at this moment. Those in Congressional leadership and new WH admin will prefer to put a bandaid on this so that making it worse cannot be tied to their legacy. But this didn’t start over night, and was decades in the making. It will take time to reverse the damage… and retrain consumers and govt to live within their means. (if either of these dogs can learn old tricks….)
MataHarley, thank you for your thoughtful response. (Happy Thanksgiving as well).
The congress is a really daunting issue to deal with. My suggestion is a bit radical since term limits are not my favorite course of action. Basically I think a lower ratio of Representatives to constituents would be much better. In many areas congressional districts have millions of constituents which requires a ton of money to get elected. Much of this money comes from outside interests to the actual districts they wish to serve. The whole idea of citizen representation is eroded for our lower house due to the dilution of constituents vs. representative. The size of congress could be expanded to allow for more voices. That might seem a bit counter intuitive, but it would allow for true coalitions and probably would break down the two major parties which have had a monopoly on power for so long.
Similarly, I think it is time return the selection of Senators to the states (as it was in the beginning of our Republic). Now Senators seem to look like they are “super representatives” instead of looking after the specific interests of their states. This too would return more power to the states and remove the massive amounts of money that influences Senators.
@Mike’s America:
LOL — I JUST GOT IT. Gosh I am slow lately.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!