Beltway Backstop
The two scariest news stories from last week: here and here. If you think the dollar is weak and the cost of living is rising now, wait till you see what happens if we embark on some big new economic stimulus, unpaid for, while the Fed continues to cut rates. Of course the major damage would hit well after the current administration leaves office.
More on this soon.
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, January 07, 2008
10 Comments:
It is insanity, and it is (sadly) inevitable. Lawrence Summers was in the FT this weekend arguing the same thing, though his was largely through fiscal means. My favorite part of his piece was the requirement that the stimulus have no major impact, and that "Ideally, further stimulus would be provided by measures to reduce future deficits and increase long-run confidence."
How do you have stimulus that reduces future deficits?
As scary as our financial collapse is I'm more frightened by Sibel Edmonds confession to the Sunday Times (UK). After being gagged by our court system for "national security" reasons she spilled the beans to the Sunday Times! Her allegations are very damning to our political masters. I'm suprised they didn't just off her. As scary as her allegations are...the silence from our national media is even scarier! No mention yet...nothing...not a peep. 60 minutes interviewed her when she wasn't discussing details for fear of prosectution. She gave some hints but named no names. She named names but the Sunday times didn't print them. The names have been leaked to the blogoshere though. Apparantly our government does control our media. We need to change our name to USSA! Funny...you do become what you fear the most. We are becominig a totalitarian country. Maybe those holding cells Halliburton has been building aren't for illegals after all. Time to bury the gold...grab my tent, my gun, and my fishing pole and head into the woods until this thing blows over. LOL.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5518
Bush has been lapping up every form of temporary stimulus he can to keep his house of cards intact. Tax cuts? Check. Increased spending? Big time. Historically low fed funds rate for a historically long period of time ot artificially boost credit markets? Yep. Attendant housing bubble. Oh, yeah.
When Bush's term ends, there will be nothing left in the well. Emergency policy has become daily policy under him. If the economy goes into recession, the next President along with all of us are screwed.
re: Sibel Edwards.
Steve Clemmons, in my experience, is usually on the money.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/002681.php
An economic stimulus package that might yield lower future deficits would be one that channels Federal spending into projects that promise future economic returns, rather than a DoD project for maintaining petrodollar hegemony. Key to this is reduced reliance on foreign oil. redirected heavy/high tech industry and R&D that is currently absorbed by economically non-sustainable activities (MIC) into missions that have greater potential for future returns, such as transportation, resource and energy infrastructure and accelerated development of space platforms for zero-gravity research and manufacturing.
In terms of capital flow, this program could be designed as a perfect substitution strategy for current programs with nominal job loss and high potential upside. Economically under-productive dollars spent today could be redirected into projects that have higher potential for future returns.
Somehow I don't see this coming from the Cheney administration. Food for thought nonetheless.
accelerated development of space platforms for zero-gravity research and manufacturing.
Done. In the private sector no less. Companies just have to come up with the money to rent/buy the space.
The press is supposed to be independent of government. 60 minutes interviewed her when she wasn't giving specifics. She gives specifics and our media doesn't even report it? That doesn't bother anybody? Doesn't matter whether what she says is true or not...how can the media not cover it? Unless....
It will not actually have effect, I consider this way.
The author is definitely right, and there's no question.
That is all wrong what you're saying.
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