Success Warrior: The Blog That Embraces ADHD

How Presidential Candidates Will Deal With A Floundering Economy and the Probable Results

The impending economic recession has become the #1 issue in the political campaign.  It beats illegal immigration and has edged out the war in Iraq as the political hot topic.  Lynette has rightly pointed out that the war in Iraq is the most important factor with the economy and you can't talk about one without talking about the other.  The Old Media has refused to connect the two, most likely because it would change things from a 70% disapproval of the war to a 90% outrage of the war.  If (I so wish it was "when") Americans learn that the reason oil is $100 a barrel and milk is $5 a gallon is because of the war, they are going to be more than a little pissed.  The Old Media which supports the war and is trying to convince us that there won't be a recession will probably never connect the cause with the effect.  They will continue to blame the housing bubble for what is happening and politicians will make their promises on how to fix it without mentioning the war.

Now that the economy is the #1 problem, candidates are starting to talk about it.  What will the next president do to help us with this economic downturn?

Hillary Clinton Plan To Keep Us Out of a Recession is to Boost Inflation

Is it me or does this just sound like a bad idea.  Not that she has worded it this way of course.  She is telling people that she is the next messiah and that we will live in a Utopian bliss of economic prosperity and lower gas prices if she's elected.

Her plan is to put $70 billion NEW dollars into the economy in tax rebates and emergency money for foreclosures and energy.

"The plan won't be offset by spending cuts elsewhere because the idea is to inject new money into the economy, Sperling said. `This is the exception to her hard-and-fast rule that new initiatives should be paid for.'"

I still don't know if candidates like Hillary Clinton are ignorant of how the economy works or if they know but don't care.  Not that it really matters.  Whether it's a lack of education or lack of ethics, the results are the same.  Inflation will only make a recession worse.

I've noted before, the more we try to hold off a recession by injecting fake money into the system, the more likely we are to find ourselves in a depression instead of a recession. 

My fear is that people that don't understand how these things work will fall for Hillary's feel-good solutions that only make things worse.

McCain Puts My Mind At Ease On Recession Issue

McCain said that we are going to be able to avoid the recession that is looming ahead of us.  That turns out to be lucky for him since he has declared that he is ready to spend 100 years in Iraq.

I don't doubt that intention.  We are building the biggest embassy on the face of the planet in Iraq.  Bigger than the UN in New York.  Bigger than the Vatican city.  You don't build something like this for temporary reasons.  It's a fortress that will house the population of small town.

The US is moving into Iraq for good.

All those people who believe that the warmonger candidates are going to give one final big surge, settle the area, and then leave, are not aware of what's really going on.

Or how much it's going to cost the average American.

Turn off the TV and pay off your debts.  Don't let King George, Henry Paulson, or "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" McCain lull you into complacency about the state of the economy.

Out Of Control Inflation

If I'm halfway right about the economy of 2008, you are very likely to hear about "out of control inflation" in the Old Media this year.

What I want to be perfectly clear for my readers is that there is no such thing.  Inflation is very much in control.  It's controlled by the Federal Reserve.

The term "out of control" inflation is used to deflect responsibility.  It's used to make inflation seem like this unknown force that just seems to happen.  The government would have you believe that inflation is a monetary Katrina that forms and strikes out of the blue and then they rush in to try to clean up the damage.

The truth of the matter is that we know what causes inflation, the government causes it, there are lots of warning signs, there is no surprise, and it's far from being out of control.

By printing money by the barge-load to fund our military and bail out Wall Street, the Federal Reserve is flooding the market with hundreds of billions of dollars that have no actual value.  When they do this, the supply of money becomes so great that the value of money goes down.  It then takes more of these less valuable dollars to buy things and thank god for debit cards because they will save us from using wheel barrows to haul money to the grocery store.

The Cost of Money

I know I haven't blogged much about money lately.  I'm writing up something longer than a blog post on money.  I'll try to get back to blogging here this year.  The year could be good for my personal finance, bad for the economy, which would be bad for me. 

Anyway, here's a funny video for today.