Questions By Bill

I have been reading and trying to understand economics since college. The more I learn the less I know. Economics seems more about romance than science. Obama’s team says their economic policies rescued us from a second depression and created or saved millions of jobs. Are they nuts?

The trinity of Obama’s economic team is Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, and Peter Orszag. Orszag is the lead romantic after recently having a love child with one woman while scheduled to marry another in October. Geithner was the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Summers was the President of Harvard. The press has made it clear that these guys are the greatest economic minds on the planet.

Obama and his team continually remind us of the economic disaster they inherited from Bush. Bush and the republicans spent taxpayer money like lottery winners and left the country heavy in debt. I agree with Obama that their task  to lead America out of this terrible economy was monumental. After a year in charge the only difference between the Bush team and the Obama team is the gambling style. Instead of spending like lottery winners Obama’s boys spend like gamblers in Vegas using other peoples money with no limits.

Here is a list of Obama economic polices that leave me scratching my head:

• Continue giving money to banks “too big to fail” with no accountability. It’s like leaving a room full of 3rd grade boys with the comment, “now play nice while I am gone”.
• In spite of the increasing national debt, spend over a trillion dollars and call it stimulus. Most of the money went to other over-spending government entities (state and local) to save them from bankruptcy. There were no jobs or recovery, but the message changed. Now the company line is that the stimulus saved us from a second depression.
• Take ownership of GM. GM’s financial problems came from a ridiculous system of payroll and benefits for life, requiring a huge increase in car prices. What would happen if McDonald’s paid their employees $30 an hour and allowed retirement at 19 with pension and healthcare benefits for life? The golden arches would become the gray monuments. Since when can a government run a large ineffective business in a competitive environment? Is it any surprise that Ford is winning the car wars?
• Obama’s gut busting budget. In the midst of increasing debt what do econonuts do? Spend twice as much as you bring in. They have proposed a $4 trillion budget when we will only have money for $2 trillion.
• The second coming of stimulus! The first stimulus did so well and $14 trillion in debt is just not enough. To these guys the road to jobs, jobs, jobs, is spend, spend, spend.
• The largest entitlement ever. With Social Security and Medicare struggling financially, Obama says we need nationalized healthcare. This would be the largest and most costly entitlement in the history of the nation.

I am seeing more nutty than genius from this economic team. There is one rule that every government, family, and business should follow – live within your means. Do they teach that at Harvard?

Tags: depression, economic recovery, jobs, larry summers, peter orszag, timothy geithner

This entry was posted on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 7:53 am and is filed under Economy, General, Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.