THE QUEEN WITH ALL HER ROYAL PALACES AND GOLD RICHES has always been a picture of parsimony, prudence, restraint and thrift compared to our insanely profligate political culture. All this massive public deficit spending led by that fiscal socialist, George W. Bush, the five trillion dollar man, is deeply deeply wasteful and hugely irresponsible, and will most certainly bite us all in the ass in the end. Gordon Brown too is a glutinous pig, so is Stephen Harper with his tens of billions in throwaways announced today, though not yet nearly to the same extent. Fiscal stimulus is a forlorn hope, at best government acts like a big clumsy retarded giant when attempting to pull and push the unwieldy, mammoth levers of a nation's economic pulse. Apart from handing money back to taxpayers to spend and save as they see fit, it is a criminally dumb thing to try and do. It won't work, it'll just saddle us with future gargantuan debt loads and it'll be decades before we climb back to where we were. We just never learn, do we. It's back to the future once again.
What this recession calls for is a little stinginess on the part of everyone, to save and invest for the future and stop overextending ourselves which got us into this credit mess in the first place. We need to become Scrooges not spendaholics to free ourselves from this cycle of debt and put us back on a sound footing once again. Short-term pain for long-term gain, instead of the other way around. But common sense and stingy doesn't sell in an economy and population and politicians addicted to the instant gratification of borrowed money.
I prefer stingy alright, I prefer stuffy dukes over slick politicians, like I prefer stern fathers over dead-beat dads. As always, count me with the minority. Democracy, the God that failed indeed.
Correct. Everyone's just nuts printing money as if it's our last best hope. We will pay dearly for it.
ReplyDeleteIt was a very good post, but not nearly as much fun once I realized the headline did not read (as I first saw it, with my still morning bleary eyes) "The Queen's 'monkey' squandered by crazy 'Kenyans' and drunken spendaholics.
ReplyDeleteThis is not 1991 or 1981.
ReplyDeleteIt's called deflation.
This is a critical moment in economic history.
Hiding dollar bills in between mattress and box spring will only exacerbate the current problem.
It's called deflation.
ReplyDeleteSir,
There may be a price deflation. In assets, certainly.
But we are seeing serious monetary inflation. This shows a monetary inflation for USD of 94 % in just 4 months (Aug 1 to Dec 1). That's the equivalent of 630 % in a year (1.94^3 = 7.30).
The U.S. Federal Reserve is inflating the American dollar like crazy. Sooner or later that will result in price inflation.
Sir:
ReplyDeleteThe fact that the inflation of the money supply is not countering the deflationary spiral is a sign of how serious this has become.
We are living history. Are we up to the challenge?
Or do we just mouth more liberal platitudes from "The Wealth of Nations"?
We are living history. Are we up to the challenge?
ReplyDeleteHow do you, sir, propose we rise to the challenge?
Let's be bigger than ourselves for a start. Economic dogma has to be discarded, for like all dogma is it the product of irrationality.
ReplyDelete