It's now almost 5:30 on Thursday evening. It's been nearly an hour an a half since the New York Stock Exchange closed and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 391.10 points down for the day.
Comment-thread arguments here at LITD and certainly elsewhere get caught up in exact causes of rises and falls in the major investment incices. It's certainly going on all over the web right now.
I argue with certainty that policies, intiatives and shenanigans implemented over the last three years - here in America, most importantly, but actually throughout the developed world, which is sharing our alarm this evening - are chiefly responsible for where we are this evening, but where the preponderance of the accountability lies at this late hour is beside the point.
The question is whether anybody has a solid idea / plan for reversing this situation and averting disaster.
And the answer is clear: One side of the ideological spectrum does, and the other does not.
Are you still waiting for the Most Equal Comrade to come up with something other than the garbage that even Dems with an electron's worth of intelligence are creating distance from?
Or how about his somewhat-nemesis within the FHer party, Willie the Zipper, who, while deserving plaudits for saying publicly that we most definitely don't need to be raising any taxes right now, immediately afterward lapsed into the loopiest sort of Keynesianism?
No. If this worldwide situation, and certainly its American form, shows us anything, it's that operating on basic concepts like living within our means, not chasing after fantasies (think green here), upholding that most basic of freedoms - the right to keep what is yours - and not basing public policy on feigned pity for supposedly beleagured demographics, would immediately begin to lift our toes from the prcipice and turn us around toward solid ground.
Have a good weekend after watching your savings get sucked dry from the market. Did your investment adviser advise you correctly?
ReplyDeleteCut personal income taxes and corporate income taxes to 5 percent, eliminate capital gains tax, repeal FHer-care, put any unused stimulus money back into the general fund, shut down the EPA, the NLRB, the Deaprtments of Education, Energy and Agriculture, and the EPA and the NLRB, free up oil drilling in Alaska, North Dakota and Colorado and disavow any and all "green" initiatives and subisdization endeavors the federal government is currently wastin money on. The turnaround would begin within days. You'd see postive signs within hours.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, implement a conservative vision and run like hell away from anything left of center.
Oh, I forgot one important thing. Serve notice to anyone 45 or under that they are going to have much more choice in how to craft a retirement strategy - and strategy for making sure they can meet the health care costs they'll have in their sunset years - for themselves.
ReplyDeleteWe have had a lot of choices in crafting a retirement strategy because we listened 30 years ago when it was said that in no way was social security going to be enough to retire on. As for the medical costs, well they are through the roof no matter where you look. And I personally will resist any effort to erode either Social Security or Medicare at least for my demographic, b. 1950. I paid into it, just like any other insurance premium and it is close to the time for me to reap the benefits. Paul Ryan can try to carry his ball for his generation and we will see what other rough beasts slouch towards Washington.
ReplyDeleteSure, pull out of the Middle East and within days we'd see rapid healing there too. Of course involving great pain and the shedding of red instead of green. You got to go to hell before you get to heaven, right? OK, that's Steve Miller, not the Bible, but true, no? And don't try to tell me it would be painless. Deaath or near death for many, for sure, economically.
ReplyDeleteDon't try to tell you what would be painless?
ReplyDeleteAlso, re: your SS and Medicare: nobody of note on the current goevernmental / political scen is talking about denying you your benefits. You're 61.
They will try to cut them, already happening with medicare. Your prescription which you claim will bring about immediate healing would be like letting a wound go untreated. It might start to heal without treatment, but it will be painful and you might lose the limb but not the body. You are hands off the economy and hands on the throat of the enemy. Maybe those are apples and oranges and an invalid comparison, but there is a tao of conflict and war, if it gets that far, as much as there is an invisible hand guiding a laisse faire economy.
ReplyDeleteNo, no! I like that very much. That sums up a great deal about how I see the proper role of government. "Hands off the economy and hands on the throat of the enemy." You may see that show up from time to time around here.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you turn it into a country song? I'll trust you to credit me with a portion of the royalties. Who would you have sing it as a duet?
ReplyDeleteWell, the genre's true legends, like those in most genres in this post-American cultural climate, are getting long in the tooth, so I'd go big and talk to George Jones's people, while he's still active.
ReplyDelete