Has everyone forgotten the extraordinary events that took place on 9/11? I understand many of you hate Bush, think he's the devil, and all that, but at least be able to give some credit where it's due.
The fact that our economy survivied, rebounded, and flourished as it did after what happen is an amazing testiment to the people of this country and the administration for providing the leadership, security, and confidence that we needed at that time. It was an absolute pleasure to see everyone in this country put their personal politics aside for the good of our country. Poll after poll after poll showed that it was the President who brought feelings of confidence and security after those events. You can argue about the war all day long and hindsight is wonderful, but the fact remains that despite organized concerted efforts, there were no additional attacks. Just give a little credit for that.
I've heard so many people argue, it's only been a 3 weeks give Obama a chance. Well for Christ's sake, he's already done so much in these 3 weeks, that you have to start scratching your head and begin questioning motives, agenda, as well as the performance of what's taken place. The market has not reacted well at all to the stimulus package and the continued to decline as facts emerged and tanked on the day of signing. People who understand this stuff have already figured out that any benefit will be short term and short lived and that much of the debt is going towards non-essential, non-growth projects. Obama's assertion that "most economists agree" with him is an outright falsehood. I believe there are now more than 200 Nobel Laureate economists who have signed on against this plan because such plans have never once worked in modern history. Infastructure simply does not work as a foundation to create growth and wealth. It doesn't work.
Now, there's talk of Stimulous Package 2 coming down the pike.
I have yet to hear the President say anything positive about the state of the country.... anything to give the average concerned citizen hope. When the initial machine begins to faulter, it is the confidence level of the consumer which sustains things, which puts a floor on the decline. If you erode that, your downside becomes open ended. I have never heard of any President hedge every decision they make by stating, "it's going to get a lot worse" and use fear inspiring words like 'castastrophe" and "calamity" over and over and over again in every media event where this is discussed. I just find the whole thing quite strange. It's like he's setting a safety net for himself for when it all fails.
Add to this some of the other things like politicization of the census which is just unbelievable, how poorly his cabinet picks have gone, the fact that he flew Airforce One to Denver to sign the Stimulus Bill (and Joe Biden took Airforce Two btw) rather than just signing it in the Rose Garden as customary, it just looks like he's not up to the task to me. That once he's beyond the teleprompter and the reach of the handlers, he faulters and shows his lack of judgement.
I swear I hope I'm wrong about everything I do. But think about this...there is a phenomenon called stagflation which in very basic terms means that prices are going up while the economy is going down. It's a very very difficult push/pull effect that's difficult to overcome. We experienced this in the mid 70's due to the spike in oil prices. To put it simply, it's the control of the money supply that prevents us from reaching that point and getting out should we get there. However, due to this massive stimulus package the liberals raced to cram down America's throat, we will be printing money like there's no tomorrow. What does that do? It floods the money supply... the exact opposite of what restarts the engine.
Because of my job, I look at this stuff all day long and talk to people a 100 times smarter than me. It's times like this where I wish I didn't know what I know. I honestly wish I was not an analyst and knew nothing of finance and economics. For the first time in my adult life, I'm have very doubtful feelings about what the future holds in the next 5-20 years. I just don't know where we'll be as a country. I don't like politicizing things but I hope that the GOP get their act together for a change, and can take back the Congress and repeal a good chunk of this nonesense before it does too much damage. I don't know if that will happen since Republicans are simply inept at relaying their message and have drifted from the core values of conservativism. My wish would be that middle leaning dems will eventually start distancing themselves from the far left style of government and that the Republicans will advance an agenda that can be inclusive of that group.
