Economy - Fleckenstein vs Krugman

While both sides continue to point fingers and deflect blame, let's get something straight... They are ALL to blame! BOTH sides are to blame! BIG Government is to blame! However, while they quibble over blame to put their own selfish interests before the Constitution and the best interests of this Country, we are still free wheeling out of control into a Depression as Jobs are lost and/or exported overseas.

Mr Fleckenstein wrote an article that is more close to the reality of blame in a rebuttal to a series of Krugman articles that try to lay blame on Reagonomics and Republicans in general. Fleckenstein rightfully defended some of Reagan era's policies, but squarely blamed the FED and Alan Greenspan. This is more accurate since it is the FED (and even the WMF) that have A LOT of say in financial markets and policy making. There is WAY too much power in these bodies and little oversight to provide the checks and balances needed, save Congress.

Fleckenstein Article with Krugman Article References
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/ContrarianChronicles/blame-reagan-for-our-financial-mess.aspx

Now that you are up to speed with Fleckstein and Krugman's points of view, let me give you mine where although Mr Fleckenstein is more accurate in his assessment, I still think he stopped short.

He forgot to mention Congress! Each Congress since the end of the Carter administration. While the FED and Greenspan are squarely to blame for the misinformation fed to Congress in making their poor decisions, it was the responsibility of Congress to review and approve the legislative measures and budgets that slowly eroded into the mess we have today. Even our current President and Vice President were in on these policy decisions as members of the Senate, but I don't see either one ready to step up to the plate and take any heat for it. How can they rightfully vote on a stimulus plan they did not read?! This was the most egregious of all blunders made by a sitting Congress during ANY crisis! They should all be fired, starting with Pelosi and Reid as Majority Leaders. That was the People's Money they blindly signed off on to spend, and money they don't even have! Go ahead and raise Corporate Taxes, they are going under or going overseas. Go ahead and raise Taxes on the rich, they are going overseas too! Whose going to be left? The Middle and Lower Income Classes will once again be stuck with the bill, and our children and grandchildren will be paying for the Congressional and Presidential incompetence! And, that's assuming there's anything left of this Nation.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that these measures over the years were deliberate political sabotage in the financial system against the incoming administration of the opposing party. The problem is whether or not they had the foresight to know what the long term effects of these policies were. The first Act was passed at the End of the Carter Administration and the incoming Reagan Administration had to deal with the S&L's (first warning). Reagonomics made matters a little worse through Deregulation that allowed for the Pricing Inflation and Market Boom of the Clinton Administration driven by greed. In the late Clinton Administration they passed the next Act that lowered Lending standards creating the Bubble that burst late in W's Administration. Frankly, if it weren't for 9/11 and the War on Terror, the Dot Com Crash of 2001 would have cascaded into other markets and Bush would have been a one term President like his father before him. The plan backfired and the bubble didn't burst until the end of Bush's 2nd term just as Obama was about to take office. Now Obama is trying to pass himself off as the next FDR to save us from the next Great Depression, and so far failing miserably because he refuses to let go of his Liberal agenda and move to the middle where he needs to be. He is being inflexible unable to adapt his rhetoric and still dig us out of a hole that he helped dig because of his lack of experience. Not to mention the Hacks and Chronies he surrounded himself with in his Administration that also took part (some more than others) in creating this bubble.

Fleckenstein also mentioned the corporate money sink of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), lets not forget other gov't mandates on corporations that waste money to remain "Compliant" and "Audit Ready". Many of these are redundant and waste valuable money and manhours, putting an unnecessary overhead upon even the smallest company. The redundancy creates another bureaucracy wasting taxpayer and corporate monies that could be better spent elsewhere, like job creation and retention here in the USA. Instead, its another reason for the corporations to go global and export US jobs. Lets not leave out the Global Warming debate. I'm all for Cleaner, Greener, Cheaper and more Efficient Technologies, but scare tactics and Carbon Taxes are not going to get us there and they sure aren't going to dig us out of this Economic Crisis.

A fundamental rule in Project Management is that you cannot successfully complete a project or solve a problem on time and under budget by randomly throwing more resources at it. Likewise, you cannot spend your way to prosperity. Its going to fail and its going to take down this country that our Forefathers worked too hard to build and protect. Someone needs to pull the breaks on the freewheeling course that has been set, and clearly define the course and speed with which to continue in a prosperous direction. Without a clearly defined, understood and executed economic plan of wise spending, you will fail.

Final note to Mr Obama - you are no Lincoln, FDR or Kennedy... They would have bowed to NO ONE!!! Even Nixon knew where the buck stopped and stood tall when it came to him. Be more selfless about your interests, have some pride for America and being American, and honor those you were elected to serve.

Now if you want to fix the problem - close the damn check book, put your Government Credit Card away, and let these Companies FAIL! "Too big to fail" is a poor excuse. Focus on fixing the regulatory problems that allowed this to happen in the first place, and not on bailing out or stimulating. Sure it will hurt for a little while, but there are alway vultures ready to pick up the pieces and make them flourish once again. It won't hurt for Generations of Tax Payers that haven't even been born yet. Stimulating the economy in this way is like giving Viagra to a Rapist whose a repeat offender that will only come back for more until he's finally chemically catstrated.

The Constitution, The Federalist Papers & The Senate

As described in The Federalist Papers, Senators were suppose to be chosen by the state legislatures, and ratified by that state's Governor. The purpose of this was to assemble a body of people who were not beholden to the general populace; who would be a check to both the House and the President, beholden to the general populace by the very nature of the election process. The Senate was suppose to provide a means to slow down legislation that is a harried, panicked, knee-jerk reaction to current events allowing a "cool down" period to fully consider the ramifications and costs associated with said piece of legislation.

We no longer have any type of cool-down period!

Consider the recent stimulus package, full of pork-barrel spending, that hardly any of the House or Senate members were able to read through fully, if at all, because of the speed with which the bill went through both the House and the Senate! This bill should have had a check in place to allow full consideration as described in the Constitution and The Federalist Papers.

Should we return our government to this form and not elect our Senate via popular vote?

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers
that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

Who's To Blame?

It has been cast that the Bush Administration's policies over the last eight years are responsible for the fiscal crisis we are facing today. However, I would put forth a new theory that could explain our current predicament. The Democrat's persistant chorus calling the Bush Administration's policies bad for the economy over the last eight years is the sole reason why the economy tanked!

The Democrat's chorus turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy because they were doing everything to oppose President Bush's policies.

President Bush wanted to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because he saw that there was a problem with issuing suspect mortgages. The Democrats opposed this because they felt that giving out the suspect mortgages allowed people to prosper and help the economy. We now know that this was false.

The Democrat's proposals were always built around the premise that the government will bail out the needy. These proposals caused people to overspend and company executives to live high on the hog without regard to the bottom line. If the economy is going to tank in 2009, as the Democrats whined about for the last 8 years, then let's party until 2008. When it does tank they would just ask for a bailout! Again, the whining and opposition to President Bush actually caused the prophesy to come true!

The only thing that can be a pox on both their houses is that neither party developed and enacted a plan for alternate energy. But, here I would fault the Democrats for not willing to drill in ANWR 8 years ago as a stop gap measure until alternates are brought online. The Democrats also were in staunch opposition to the development of clean coal and new nuclear power plants. Allowing oil production in ANWR and developing clean coal & nuclear when President Bush first came into office would have alleviated the oil crisis 8 years later. The oil crisis in turn caused a lot of companies to lose jobs in order to pay the energy bill.

The Democrats have inherited a problem that they were instrumental in creating. Their only solution is more spending without regard for the bottom line. How this will solve any problems is beyond comprehension.

Go Ahead, Barack, Hire All Those Entrenched Dems

Contrary to my previous sentiments, Barack Obama should hire all entrenched Dems into his Cabinet. He has already picked Senator Joe Biden as his running mate and Congressperson Rahm Emanuel as his Chief Of Staff.

Why stop there?

Select:

Hillary Clinton as your Secretary of Health & Human Services
Howard Dean as your Secretary of Housing & Urban Development
John Kerry as your Secretary of State
Chuck Schumer as your Secretary of Finance
George Miller as your Secretary of Education
Diane Feinstein as your Secretary of the Interior


Look to other Senators and Congresspersons for other positions. If you can’t find any worthy candidates, then look to the Governorships. Take a Bill Richardson, Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, Ed Rendell, or other fine Democrat candidates.

Give them six months on the job… AND THEN FIRE THEM!!!!

You will have removed the biggest obstacles to governing in one fell swoop! You will have new faces in the Senate and House who will not think they are the power behind the throne.

Think of the possibilities!

Sarah Palin Given The Bum's Rush

Sarah Palin was given the bums rush into the nomination just 60 days prior to the election. John McCain has been campaigning for almost 2 years!

The failures fall squarely on his shoulders. He’s retooled his campaign twice because of his failures. Both times he has dispatched a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. He has never taken responsibility for his own actions.

Now he’s trying to sacrifice Sarah Palin to take blame for the third and final collapse of his campaign. It is looking like he choose Sarah Palin for just this purpose! He took a gamble, being down in the polls, with the selection of Sarah Palin.

He was truly surprised that he went ahead in the polls after the convention. But then the financial collapse occurred, he erroneously suspended his campaign, backed a deal that the public did not want, and his campaign never recovered! He had no plans he could present to the public. He had no calming speeches to ease the fears of the electorate. He refused to attack his opponent on issues. He forgot that "Nice Guys Finish Last!"

If he was truly sincere in having her fully involved in the campaign, able to withstand scrutiny, she should have been involved much earlier in order to harden her against the attacks. She did the best she could in the short amount of time she had. A recent poll showed that she in fact DID help the campaign -- that it wasn't her that dragged the ticket down!

I wish he would publicly tell the American people that it was not her fault and ask that the attacks cease -- just like he did for Obama!

Abuse Of Power Resides In The Courts

I love the way the court said that Sarah Palin's actions were an abuse of power, but that she had constitutional authority to fire Walt Monegan!!! This is an oxymoronic (or just plain moronic) statement IMHO! What this does demonstrate is that the court itself is the one abusing power! It allows a false charge to tarnish someone doing their job while stating that the charge is false! The press and the Democrats have taken the false charge to heart and made it their new campaign point!

The press and the Democrats fail to mention the second part of the findings:

"I find that, although Walt Monegan’s refusal to fired Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination of Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Goveror Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads."

The court and the press also fail to mention the litany of insubordinate acts performed by Walt Monegan that led to his firing:

December 2007: Monegan holds a press conference with Hollis French to push his own budget plan.

January 2008: Palin’s staffers have to rework their procedures to keep Monegan from bypassing normal channels for budget requests.

February 2008: Monegan publicly releases a letter he wrote to Palin supporting a project she vetoed.

June 2008: Monegan bypassed the governor’s office entirely and contacted Alaska’s Congressional delegation to gain funding for a project.

If she was pressuring to have the trooper fired, it was for far more dire incidents than the trooper divorcing a family member. He was demonstrating volatile and unprofessional behavior, including the use of his government issued stun gun on his 10 year old step son, making death threats to the Palin family, drinking on the job and other various offenses. The judge should have upheld the Governor's right to pressure Commissioner Monagan to fire a volatile trooper regardless of family connections! ANY trooper engaging in these acts should be immediately fired.

A Call To Arms

It is all the Socialist programs including the sub-prime mortgages that are bringing down our capitalist system at this time. We cannot subsidize the purchasing power for all the people. We cannot keep taxing the people that do work in order to sustain others that don't work.

The American people need to be aware that the Democrat's programs have pretty much bankrupted everyone including banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and other corporations. We are seeing the fallout of the New Deal and the Great Society! Instead of improving our nation, we are on the verge of another Great Depression!

The government cannot buy banks and companies to save them. Doing so pushes the U.S. even further to becoming a Socialist nation. Let's not put the icing on the cake by letting the Democrats escape scott free and take over the government in November!!!

What we must do is cut out the Socialist programs that are ruining this country. We must put the checks and balances back into place to allow our capitalist system to work properly and efficiently. There was a reason for the 25% down payment on a house or an automobile.

The people should also be aware that they can no longer overspend on cell phones, computers, Internet connections, big screen TVs, Automobiles, and other items. They can get these same goods and services without overspending, thinking that the government will be there to bail them out.

Does anyone need a Iphone when a Go phone will suffice? Does anyone need a 52" flat-screen TV when a smaller tube based TV works just fine? Does anyone need a Hummer when a smaller SUV or auto works just fine (and saves gas)? The money saved can sustain a family's mortgage!

A lot of People don't have an Iphone, a flat-screen TV, a big SUV, or other big items precisely because they have to pay a Mortgage and college tuition. Yet, they are the ones that will be footing the bill to bail out those that did not qualify getting a regular mortgage!

The Democrats and liberal leaning Republicans need to be held to account for allowing this to happen to our economy. Since the Democrats took control of the Senate and the House, our economy has been spiraling downward. They refused to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They have been in league with Socialist organizations such as ACORN that lobbied, and even sued, to have these two organizations remain untouched!

Yet, the American People are being convinced that the Democrats are the ones that will save the Economy. They need to understand that the Democrats never have and never will turn away from socialist programs that will ruin our economy, our country and our lives!