Monday
The state spends vast amounts of money, yet the deficit is 'more that predicted'? And the recession will be 'more severe than forecast'?
Well mate, I must be an god-damn oracle then, and Paul Marks too in fact, because it is all going pretty much exactly as we predicted and forecast.
Government policy is to suck out vast amounts of wealth from the economy and then redirect it themselves... and borrow money from whatever mugs will lend it to them... and to simply print more money like crazed counterfeiters... so the deficit grows by leaps and bounds and the economy tanks.
I find it utterly laughable that this was not the predicted, forecast and indeed desired outcome as no other outcome was even vaguely possible. Economic health was never government policy, either in the UK or the USA. The policy objective is increased political control of people's lives ('regulation') via de facto nationalisation of the economy. The fact some investors actually buy into the notion such lunacy actually benefits them just adds some comic relief to the unfolding tragedy.
Government policy is working just fine.
"The policy objective is increased political control of people's lives ('regulation') via de facto nationalisation of the economy."
Indeed.
Stuart Varney has an op-ed essay in the Saturday Wall Street Journal which hits the nail squarely on the head. This administration's goal is the nationalization of the entire financial services system, and ultimately the rest of the economy as well.
Posted by Laird at April 6, 2009 05:04 PM
The policy objective is increased political control of people's lives ('regulation') via de facto nationalisation of the economy.No, no, no. You're wrong, it's all for our benefit, to make life easier, more convenient, and to protect us from monsters like identity fraud.(Link)
Posted by Marc Sheffner at April 7, 2009 02:45 AM
Oh, lighten up, people! Everything is going to be just fine. Really. Now, if only people would stop watching TV shows like this(Link), paradise on earth will come just that bit sooner.
Posted by Marc Sheffner at April 7, 2009 02:48 AM
The Treasury says the national debt is climbing to the sky
And govermnent expenditures have never been so high.
It makes a feller get a gleam of pride within his eye,
to see how our economy expands,
The country's in the very best of hands.
You ought to see the congress when it's drawing up a bill,
"Where as"'s and "to wit"'s are crowded in each codicil.
Such legal terminology would give your heart a thrill.
There's phrases there that no one understands.
The country's in the very best of hands.
The building boom, they say, is getting bigger every day.
And when I asked a feller "How could everybody pay?"
He come up with an answer that made everything OK,
"Supplies are getting bigger than demands."
The country's in the very best of hands.
Don't you believe them congressmen and senators are dumb.
When they run into problems that are tough to overcome,
They just declare a thing they calls a moritorium.
The upper and the lower house disbands.
The country's in the very best of hands.
The more things change....
Johnny Mercer (1956) - from 'Lil Abner"
Posted by mezzrow at April 8, 2009 03:38 AM
Ike was President in 1956 - and even the Democrats in Congress (who controlled the House, but not the Senate) were nothing like Nancy Pelosi and company.
Also the scale of the problems was vastly smaller.
The credit-money bubble was a tiny fraction of the size of he present one (even in relation to the size of he economy).
And the entitlement programs had not grown so large that they were killing the country (indeed the health entitlement programs did not even exist).
Things do change over time - they do not stay the same.
Some things are better than in 1956 (for example technology, such as the internet, - and the end of Jim Crow), but a lot of other things are a lot worse.
Posted by Paul Marks at April 8, 2009 11:02 PM
