cannedjam

The most disingenuous rhetoric coming from Barack Obama is the “we tried it their way for the last 8 years” lie. 

The Democrats controlled both houses of congress since 2006, the same branch of government that controls the budget and spending in Washington, perhaps Obama should be familiar with this since he was a member of that house during this time. Okay so that still leaves the previous six years - you know the six years that Bush himself admitted he abandoned conservatism for to handle the full fledged war on terror. Spending of which was voted on by a large majority of both parties.

Just look at the events of the last six months alone. We had a Republican president who proposed the most liberal and  largest socialist private industry intervention legislation in the history of the United States (until the next one), a Republican and Democratic presidential candidate who both supported that legislation, and a Democratic controlled congress who voted the legislation into law. 

During the last eight years there were no fiscally conservative leaders shaping any policy in any form. Both the Republican and Democratic parties were in a full fledged orgy of spending. 

This spending created a culture of irresponsibility, irresponsibility that directly lead to the financial crisis we find ourselves in today.

Change? Please, neither presidential candidate was offering change. Our choice was between socialist and quasi-socialist. Change was not offered this time around, sorry. 

Today, Obama is picking up where Bush led off, extrapolating that spending (with his even larger socialist legislation) into the stratosphere. So can someone please explain to me how this is a deviation from the last 8 years of policies? Please anyone? Can any single person make a case that Obama is drastically deviating from “the last 8 years” by following up record government spending with even higher record government spending?

Now, many Republicans are coming out of the woodwork as conservatives advocating fiscal responsibility and prudence.  Is this new found conservatism hypocritical? Yes. Is this new found conservatism politically convenient? Yes. Is this new found conservatism what this country needs to survive? HELL YES.

I don’t care what the motivations of the Republican party are that have lead them to this new found appreciation of fiscal conservatism, all I care is that it is right path to take and hopefully not too little too late. If only someone would listen. 

So when he says “we tried it your way for the last 8 years” Obama should really be saying “we all liked spending a crap load of money when your guy was in charge, so now it is only fair for us to get a crack at spending a crap load of money now that I am in charge”. All the while ignoring the fact that spending is what’s killing us.

Unfortunatly the American public is too stupid to realize that we only had one political party for the last decade, the Spendopublicancrats. The Spendopublicancrats, consisting of every elected official in Washington, except maybe Ron Paul, had a fun time bickering about social policy, but gained consensus when it came time to spending money that this country does not have.

Seeing the damage caused, most Republicans have left the Spendopublicancratic Party and rediscovered their charter, the one about personal responsibility and liberty. By large they have found their message, broken free from the addiction of spending (for some anyway), and are calling Obama out.

His reply, “we tried it your way the last 8 years”, but we really know what he means is, “come on guys lets keep the spending going, lets keep the Spendopublicancratic Party strong”.

JAM Economics, Politics Bush, Obama, Spendopublicancratic Party

A day after New Yorkers were scared half to death by Barack Obama’s best re-enactment of 9/11, he assured America that his days of terrorizing lower Manhattan are over, saying “it won’t happen again”.

This whole event kind of reminds me of a teenager getting caught taking his father’s car out for a joy ride (well, minus the fear stricken crowds and $329,000 price tag), “sorry dad it won’t happen again, I promise”.

Putting aside the fact that this was perhaps the most ill advised photo op in the history of photo ops (even worse than the one that killed the entire royal family in King Ralph or maybe even this), this misadventure cost the American public over $300,000; those of us who are not pissed-off over having to go home for a change of underwear, should be outraged over this clearly frivolous use of tax dollars. 

Does Obama not get it? When you make speeches saying we all have to tighten our belts, we all have to get our financial houses in order, you do not schedule $300,000 photo ops. This is just another example of him telling us to turn down our thermostats to save money and energy, while he himself keeps the Oval Office at a balmy 80 degrees. Or like the time he said it was imperative that congress have their nearly trillion dollar spending bill on his desk by the end of the day Friday (for fear the financial world would collapse otherwise), then took a three day vacation not getting around to signing it ’til Tuesday. Or like on Earth Day while proclaiming the importance of energy conservation, he personally burned 9,000 gallons of fuel traveling around the country.

Hey does anyone remember when congress was outraged over CEOs of private companies flying private jets to get to Washington? I wonder how many of those CEOs commission their planes to fly passengerless over America to take pictures, now that would really be  a waste of money, and you know how much Washington hates wasting money!

You can see where this is going… the man that would bring hope to the country  by claiming he is the anti-politician; the usher of a new age, in just a short 100 days has proven himself to be the ultra politician. A man that literally says one thing while doing another. “The rules apply to those in Washington” he proclaims, while in the act of breaking them. How is that no-lobbyists-in- the-White House-decree going? Or the whole five-days-of-public-comment-before-signing-a-bill promise? Getting a dog from a shelter???

If the White House thinks spending $329,000 on a photo of his plane is a good use of tax payer dollars, can we really trust them to take more control than ever in shepherding our economy? Now I know in the grand scheme of things $329,000 is a drop in the federal bucket, however, Obama himself was the one who said every bit adds up, and if he said it you know it has to be true.

JAM Economics, Politics Air Force One, Obama

This is an example of a successful Air Force One flyby…

This, on the other hand, in exactly how not to have a successful Air Force One flyby…

Just to recap, cheering crowds: good. Panicked masses running for their lives: bad. Any questions?

JAM Off Topic Air Force One, Flyby, New York

The funny thing about this is if you do a quick google search on this exchange - there are lefty blogs contending that Norah was the one who actually laid the “smackdown” on Liz. This just goes to show how both sides of the political spectrum enjoy separate realities, the left’s just more closely resembling fantasy.

In a clear indication that Norah has detached herself from reality, she claims that we cannot waterboard captives because we would not want these techniques used on our own soldiers if they were captured. If only we could ask our beheaded and mutilated soldiers if they would have preferred being waterboarded as opposed to being executed - alas we will never know.

Bottom line, the techniques we used on these captives were the same techniques that we historically and currently use on our own soldiers during survival training. The point Cheney was making, and O’Donnell missed, was how can we not define these techniques as torture when they are used on our own, but consider them torturous when used on someone else?

My favorite part of the exchange is where O’Donnell actually believes she has caught Cheney in a misstep when she defends the fact that we had lawyers determine to what extent we could pressure the detainees before it constituted torture. But according to O’Donnell herself, she contends we violated the Geneva Convention, so I guess the interpretation of law should be left up to television anchors and not lawyers. Next time our government tries to determine what actions fall within the confines of a law, perhaps we should not seek the advice of those who are paid to advise, but instead give MSNBC a ring.

JAM Politics Liz Cheney, Torture

Yesterday Obama met with the credit card companies to admonish them for charging too much in interest rates, and generally being not so nice to debtors. Have we forgotten how banks make money? I am serious. Banks are not supposed to be funded by the government, they are supposed to be funded by people, people’s savings accounts, the interest on their mortgages, car loans, and yes credit cards. We are heading down a seriously scary path when we as a society think access to credit comes right after freedom of speech in the constitution.

If America is hooked on credit then it should cost as much as the market demands. If enough people are willing to pay 20% APR on a loan so they can impress their neighbors by having an empty 62″ plasma TV box out on the curb, then why should the credit card companies charge any less? 

I once took an online poll designed to gauge financial acuity; I didn’t get 100%. One of the questions asked if I knew what the interest rates were on all my credit cards - I knew what they were getting at, but I said no. I said no because I have no idea what the interest rates on my credit cards are; there is a good reason for this. I am 25 years old, own my own apartment, graduated from business school, work and live in Manhattan, and I have had several credit cards since I was 18. Not once have I ever carried a balance over from one month to the next. See the question did not apply to me, and what is even more disturbing is that a multiple choice quiz, supposedly designed to give an accurate representation of the taker’s financial responsibility, had no answer (e) I have never carried a balance. That was the only question I got wrong, and I guess my situation is so rare that the authors of the quiz did not even take into consideration that perhaps there were people who have never and will never have credit card debt. According to the authors of the quiz a person with 20k in credit card debt but knows how much interest they are paying has a better grasp of financial responsibility then me, who has no idea what my rates are but has never carried a balance.

We have become a society so dependent on credit and the parlaying of debt that we have generations of Americans who believe the only way to afford something is to finance it on a credit card. Forget hard work, forget living within your means, as long as you can afford the low low $99.99 monthly charge, it would be foolish not own it. 

You know what got Enron, Worldcom, Fannie Mae, and the rest of them in trouble? The accounting of debt. Basically, passing off debt indefinitely into the future and only realizing gains to make it appear as if they were profitable. This is the same thing we as a society are doing. If we make 50k a year we consume as if we make three times that, and then pass the debt off for our future selves to pay. This works if your time horizon is infinity, unfortunately it is not. The debt catches up to you, and that is what is happening to us as a society. The debt has caught up to us.

This massive debt has caused inflated values, inflated inventory, and inflated demand for our major manufactured goods. Now, the only real way to reset the economy is to let it bleed. Businesses that only exist based off of artificial demand must fail, inventory must be diminished, prices must drop. Restoring credit should not be our goal, teaching America to live without it should be, once that happens the responsible management of debt will follow, and the credit markets will ease.

The government should make sure the student loan and housing markets remain liquid, after that there is no social imperative to ensure the availability of credit for buying overpriced status symbols.

The current economic policy coming out of the White House is designed to do only one thing, create the next bubble by keeping us spending. Americans (read: voters) are too impatient to wait out a correction, no, we need it to be “fixed” right now so we can continue to buy our Snuggies and iPhones. We have discounted the future so much that another bubble sounds pretty good right now, we can worry about what happens when it pops at a later date.

Shame on you credit card companies, shame on you for charging so much for your credit. You should be making it less expensive for Americans to get into debt. You should not expect our consumption rate to be rationally inverse to the cost of debt. No, you know that our demand for debt has become inelastic and that you can charge an addict anything you want, shame on you, not us, you!

JAM Economics, Politics Credit, Obama