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Cramer's Stop Trading! What Do Cramer and Rush Limbaugh Have in Common? (1/29/09)

Apparently, you've been listening a little too much to Limbaugh. To correct your revisionist history why not take a few moments to review what got us into the mess we are experiencing:

Flash back to the neo-con's answer to 1970's stagflation and Milton Friedman's Shock Economics Theory he plied so well in South America for right wing fascists.

Roll tape a bit forward to the Gipper. Cut taxes, spend on defense out the wazoo, run record deficits, de-regulate markets and watch Uncle Milties' magic work.

While every right wing neo-con tape loop is buzzing with out-of-control GSEs, we all seem to conveniently ignore how all of this silly and frightening theoretical economic approach played out around the world through the likes of the IMF, World Bank, Halliburton, and their ilk.

Look at any country where this supply-side, trickle down, deregulated gambit has played and look at how eeiry is the similarity between those countries and this one:

1. The top 1% control 40% of all financial wealth in the U.S. The top 20% another 52%, leaving the rest of us (80%) America's financial wealth at a whopping 8%.

2. In terms of inherited wealth only 1.6% inherit moe than $100,000. 91.9% receive nothing. Yet the "death tax" is the highest priority on the ultra-conservative agenda.

Now for some sobering reminders:

Under Clinton we enjoyed a $287 Billion SURPLUS that's now an ever-growing DEFICIT that at last peek was nearing $1.4 Trillion and national debt that has grown from $5.7 Trillion to $10.2 Trillion in just seven years.

It wasn't because Clinton was an economic genious. He simply returned out-of-control revenue reduction (tax cuts) back to the Reagan rates and chose folks who shared his philosophy of government and its role. I'll put my money in the hands of the guys that believe that it's the government's job to invest in the 80% of us that need practical ways to grow our own wealth (smart energy policy, infrastructure development, education).

As for trusting in the markets to right the ship....?



On Jan 31 05:03 AM Pipeliner wrote:

> Remember how Regan got us out of a big mess? It was a ten percent
> invester tax credit. Obamas' plan won't work any better then it worked
> in East Germany.

Cramer's Stop Trading! What Do Cramer and Rush Limbaugh Have in Common? (1/29/09)

As that great, silent man of letters, Calvin Cooledge, once said:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

I would add that wealth is also no sign of greatness. It's our idolatry of lucre, focus on the short-term and delusion that we will some day have that great wealth that got us into this mess.


On Jan 30 08:53 AM Larry Gagnonl wrote:

> "Idiots" is an interesting word. How can they be "idiots" if they
> make millions of dollars to spew forth random thoughts without being
> responsible for the validity of those thoughts. I wish I could obtain
> such a job.