Actually, hope is a good thing. It’s good psychologically. It’s even good for the economy. It’s just that a systemic, global meltdown isn’t ready to disappear quite so quickly.
It has been said that expectations are the largest factor in determining the ups and downs of the economy. A little hope is giving us the fifth straight day of gains in the Dow. One shouldn’t depend on the Dow but the Dow is reflecting some hope, as seen in better than expected retail sales and other markers.
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There are so many issues on which to comment that I can’t keep up. Each one deserves at least a book, as an antidote to all of the nonsense clogging up the airwaves, cable, the Internet and the dead tree media.
Note: I have a special video treat for everyone staying to the end of this post.
The latest cant is that Obama is trying to push too many policy areas at once. BS. While it may be an overload for me, the President has an entire government at his command.
If, as most agree, the economy is the direst, most immediate threat, should he tell Secretary Sebelius to order everyone at HHS to sit on their hands? Should Secretary Gates give all of our armed forces a year or two of leave?
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All bubbles will burst but debt will remain. People are prone to believing the illusion that the Dow-Jones numbers are a measure of wealth.
Were you wealthy when the Dow was over 14,000? Has your wealth vanished? No and no. Your wealth hasn’t changed. Only the illusion that you were wealthy has disappeared.
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If you were the one who read my post entitled Upside Down, you may have noticed a commenter who shares my aversion to brevity. I mentioned that I had no intention of prolonging the discussion but he wrote back anyway.
I was impressed by his total misjudgment of me, as well as how far off the mark were his definitions. I decided to offer his most recent comment with my opinions and corrections. Although edited for length and tedium, I have not, I think, done violence to his missive.
I may be wrong, but you sound just like a Blue Dog Democrat formerly known as “Yellow Dog Democrats”, i.e., “I’d vote for a Yellow Dog before I’d vote for a Republican”.
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Someone asked me a question this morning in the locker room of the YMCA. As I was responding, someone else chimed in that the cause of all of our economic problems was that FDR had abandoned the gold standard.
I tried to come up with as humorous a retort as I could that early. It seemed that it would be an in-kind response. Whoops. He was serious. Facts and logic had no effect.
Television commentators, politicians, Joes of various occupations, denizens of the locker room, kindergarten undergraduates. We are unbelievably fortunate to have so many experts on economics at this time of crisis.
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A commentary by a noted economist. Reactions to that commentary on the Sunday talk shows. At first glance it appeared that the world had, overnight, turned upside down. First impressions aren’t always accurate.
There was South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (John McCain’s BFF) willing to consider nationalization of banks. New York Republican Congressman Peter King concurred. What was happening? Then New York’s Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer demurred, as did the new Secretary of the Treasury.
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Joe the Plumber became a media star, a foreign correspondent, a lecturer to Republican Congressmen and an expert in various other areas without ever having been a plumber, or even a Joe.
Joe Scarborough became a politician and television star with no ability to communicate. Joe’s problem, one of many, is a total unfamiliarity with the meanings of the words he is so fond of using. It may be unfair, as I suspect he lacks the creative ability to conjure anything passing for English but he was the first I heard using the words.
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Actually, we don’t have a choice to make. It has been made for us and was never in question.
We are going to save the bankers. Why? Because the bankers in government think exactly like the bankers, their friends, who are not in government. They all consider themselves and our banking system to be indispensable. Are they?
We are assured that the very ones responsible for screwing up the entire world’s economy will come to our rescue – for a price. Will they?
We are assured that they have learned their lessons. No, they didn’t. The first lesson should have been one of humility. They gave themselves bonuses with our money.The second lesson should have been appreciation. They gave themselves bonuses with our money.
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Have you watched television lately? A survey showed that the economic do-dos have received more than twice the air time on news shows as those who have advanced to at least the early 20th Century.
Watching these twits I sometimes find myself laughing, until I remember how much power they have to screw up any attempts to deal with the economic meltdown. The air time they get gives them an undeserved credibility and leads too many people to assume they know what they are talking about.
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My last post mentioned six people said to be under consideration to replace Tom Daschle as Obama’s nominee for HHS and maybe White House health honcho. I promised to find out how they stood on a single-payer system. Ed pushed me a little by reminding me of his laziness.
This post should be considered no more than a down-and-dirty effort. It was researched and written far faster than I normally work. It should, however, give you some idea of where they stand. There may, of course, be others under consideration beyond this bunch. Barack doesn’t share all of his thoughts with me anymore.
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