Interesting imo
The danger in those years [2011/2012] will be that Ben Bernanke will attempt yet again to refloat the U.S. economy through inflation, buying government debt to fund the deficit and forcing short term rates well below the inflation rate. This danger is exacerbated by the Obama administration’s insouciance about deficits. Ben Bernanke on his own (and his predecessor Alan Greenspan) bears a large share of responsibility for the 2008 crash, but the Bernanke/Obama combination is potentially even more dangerous. If expansionary monetary and fiscal policies are pursued regardless of market signals, the U.S. will head towards Weimar-style trillion-percent inflation. That would make the government’s position easier as its mountain of Treasury debt became worthless, but devastate everybody else’s savings and impoverish the American people as Weimar impoverished 1920s Germany.
As I said, a train wreck. Probability of arrival: close to 100%. Time of arrival: around the end of 2010, or possibly a bit earlier. And at this stage, there’s very little anyone can do about it; the definitive rise of gold above $1,000 marked the point of no return.
Add to this a few more things:
Next January, people will pay more in taxes than they have in years-at a time when most are worse off than they have been in years (ie w greater effect)
Unemployment is expected to remain high, and even rise MORE before midterms in 2010
Democrats blew their one chance at real economic stimulus on political payoffs, and will increasingly be held to account (it’s already started) for is failure to stimulate, create, or save jobs
Democrats losing independent voters
Democrats are incumbents controlling Congress in a midterm election where the party in power will normally lose
Democrats have accomplished very very little (might not even pass healthcare)
Democrats have pushed back deficit control efforts to 2010
Democrats have broken EVERY major 2006 campaign promise that got them control of Congress
…and then there’s natsec issues
Obama/Dems promised to end the war in Iraq, but just before midterms will still have 50-70,000 troops in Iraq (though re-named from “combat brigades” to “security, logistics, and training forces”)
There’s no way that Afghanistan is gonna end or end well in the next 11 months
Iran has been a complete failure and will likely end w an Israeli strike+possible regional war in the next 11 months
And let’s not even start to talk about how Dems will can’t look tough on natsec before the midterms w a KSM trial of the millenium on 24/7cable!
So….what is it Dems are gonna use as a campaign crutch in 2010?
Author of “Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War
Reparations and America’s 2nd Civil War: Malensek, Scott: 9798864028674: Amazon.com: Books
Blame Bush?
The BEST thing that could have been done, WAS to let the economy “hit the wall”…. yes it would have hurt!! Yes it would have been HARD! Yes some would have suffered, possibly MORE! BUT, it would have been QUICK, the bottom hit and IDENTIFIED, and we would have had nowhere to really go, but UP! Recovery would have been MUCH faster and more defined, and we’d be better off as a nation by now, instead, to win “points” in polls etc, they always insist in the “soft landing” method, where they artificially tweak and pump up and basically FAKE everything so no one “suffers too much”… INSTEAD we all suffer MUCH LONGER!!!!
It’s not unlike a car crash… do we hit the wall, take the pain, get out, deal with the financail hit, get aq new car, then continue on??
OR…. the way GOV handles it…. bonce off the wall, OW…bounce off the wall..OUCH!.. bounce off the wall….etc etc etc, until MAYBE things head back on track??? It’ “spreads the pain”…. the pain is around LONGER, and in the end, your car is STILL TRASHED…. so you gained what???
Other than “political points” (and re-election, so it REALLY is about getting the job back, NOT helping US out any) from those dumb enough to think they were in fact “better off”…. NOTHING> You actually LOST!! The faster you bottom, the FASTER you “REBOUND”!! You make MONEY on the rebound…. you DON’T constantly “bouncing off the wall”……..
and so it goes……
I blame Congress. Neither Obama nor the Fed could push us in the direction of this train wreck withhold the approval or acquiescence of congress. At this point, I know of nothing short of a fiscal and economic train wreck that can alter congress’s self inflicted destructive path. A German friend who was a young teenager during the post war economy recently shared her memoirs with my wife and me. Think of this: no money, no electricity, no running water and no sanitation. No government services. Trade what vegetables you can raise in your garden to a nearby farmer for some milk and occasionally an egg. Try to raise a family under those conditions.
The path our country is on will take us there by default, without a world war to blame it on. It will be blamed on our (the taxpayer’s) greed. Congress will have been only the vehicle. The administrations will blame everyone and anyone but refrain from accepting any blame at all. “…We were just trying to provide the people what they demanded…”
People, pay as you go.
Demand it of congress. Demand it of the administration. Demand a sound monetary policy. Demand energy independence.
This is a suicidal course they have put us on.
you are 100% right…..
Start stocking Ravioli!