Citizen Zeus

Team Obama vs. Team Reagan

Enough of this revisionist adoration of Reagan. His economic recovery was smoke and mirrros, relying on selling this country's future off in the form of massive borrowing (from foreign countries), development of the FIRE economy (based not on production of any value but GDP based in non-productive paper-pushing and skimming in finance, real estate, and insurance). He devastated unions, wages, and the middle class all the while attempting to blame non-existent welfare queens for economic problems. Up to that time he had the most indicted/corrupt people in his administration.

Krugman had it right when he said Bush II was the very culmination of Reagan policies-- a bloated military, no regulation, skyrocketing deficits, corrupt and incompetent officials who all believed government was the problem (unless it was giving unaccounted billions to cronies like Blackwater, then it was A-OK), and corporate give-aways that would only erode the moral, physical, economic, and social infrastructure of this country. Of course, he was quite willing to fill in the hole with the neo-conservatively contrived culture wars, and nostalgia for a pseudo-traditional American family recalling the 1950s.

Anyone can talk a good game and borrow trillions of dollars to throw a good party and hire a bunch of people. We don't have that luxury now. Many countries are actively talking about getting off the dollar, the same American dollar where decades of trickle-down economics has robbed of value and replaced with cynical IOU's which say, "screw the next generation, I want to get my____ (adulation, fame, big house). There is nothing traditional about that mindset. With Obama, we will actually have a truly responsible, even conservative, value actually operate... responsibility and accountability which has not happened in any modern Republican presidency.

A Deflationary Spiral? Not Likely in the U.S.

The reason why inflation over deflation is preferred by the wealthy oligarchy that largely determines the monetary policy in this country is because they own the lion's share of the assets and do not want to contemplate the loss of their own (illusory) billions of dollars on assets.

They don't need the money, but they need the psychological feeling that that they are growing and expanding in order to quell their surprisingly shallow, superfiical, and insecure sense of self-worth. Inflation is also a great way to put the screws to the labor force and workaday Joes.

Just as "disaster (terrorist, war, etc.) mania" can allow for much power to be taken away from individuals (civil liberties, etc.), so an "disaster capitalism" (making everything too expensive for people to by help create a "company town" where everyone is forced to get credit and pay unreasonable prices and forever be under the sway and power of the lender. What greater ownership can there be than to own not only property, but people themselves?