atlasman

Give Obama 40 More Years in Office!

“If we are growing at a robust rate, then we can pay for the government that we need without having to raise taxes.”

No truer words have ever been spoken. Now lets look at what Obama has either done or promised to do:

1. Increased taxes on the productive
2. Cap and Tax energy policy
3. Extremely wasteful (I would call reckless) spending
4. Ending secret union ballets
5. Complete alignment with tort lawyers.

All of these things hurt growth. I am not sure the nation can last 8 years with Obama (and his Congress), let alone 40. He can blame the past, but he owns the cure which in my opinion is pure liberalism which will do more damage than good.

The Bubble of Uncertainty Is About to Burst

Morph - Funny thing is that the contradictions in his two conclusions neatly summarized the turmoil I have felt over the last few days. I agree that stocks sure seem cheap and that there will be a bounce some day, but I hate the Macro view and certainly disagree with just about every move coming out of Washington. The end result of this confusion is inaction and I will continue to sit on my hands until one of the two opposing views changes.

I wonder how many other people are having the same dissonance?

CP

Washington's Dilemma: This Isn't a Recession, It's a Collapse

Enough with these bailouts, the solution solely lies on the cost side of the IS. Until this gets reset to a level of affordability, the problem will only get worse. I know this is politically unacceptable, especially to this crew, but it is the only long term answer.
-AM

U.S. Government's Size: The Slow-Motion Crisis

I am still trying to figure out why removing a small wall triggered the septic system inspection in my house. The two obviously have nothing to do with one another. I agree that governments are inherently extremely inefficient.

Fast forward to the debate on health care. Why would anyone want the same people that write laws on septic inspections to be in charge of your health care? Other than the military and maybe collecting taxes, there really is not one thing that they do well.

I have heard it argued that health care is too important to an individual to be subjected to markets and capitalism. Well, my arguement would be that food is more important than health care. Do we want to socialize all of the farms? That has not worked out very well when tried in the past.

-AM

Santelli's Rant: A Watershed Moment?

I cannot imagine Obama and his friends give two S*s about Santelli and a handfull of people in the Chicago Merc. These are not the people he wants to "Spread the wealth" to but are the people he wants to take from.

Added Debt Won't Rescue the Great American Ponzi Scheme

Nice article. The best way to get yourself out of debt is to earn your way out of it while restraining spending. Unfortunately BO and Congress are doing exactly the opposite by increasing spending and debt beyond anything ever conceived while simultaneously doing everything conceivable to punish earnings and make life more difficult for the common businessman/woman. This cannot turn out well.

Obama Placing the Economic Cart Before the Horse

In crafting a real solution, lets start with the most basic economic tenant:

* Taxing something reduces its quantity, subsidizing something increases its quantity.

With that in mind, lets see if we can build a system that taxes what we don't want and subsidizes what we do want. I would argue we want production and employment so lets not tax building stuff. I would also argue we do not want "excess" consumption so lets tax purchasing (perhaps put a small food, clothing, and housing deduction). As far as I can tell Obama and Pelosi are taxing the stuff we want (income & production) and subsidizing the stuff we don't want (lack of production and poor decision making). Isn't this backwards?

I know it is too simple minded and had been called capitalism before producers got a bad name.

CP

Just my .02 cents.

Obama's Housing Plan: Elegant and Costly

Steve in Greensboro - You beat me to the point. Why on earth is it a good thing that taxes are being used to subsidize mortgages for uncreditworthy people. That is why we have apartments.

So I will have to comment on what I think is the second dumbest line in this political blog:

>>"But Manhattan property owners are rich enough to look after themselves."

Continued pursuit of this class warfare will come back to haunt this country. First, not all Manhatten property owners are rich. Second, if you keep punishing the rich ones they will leave and then who will pick up the tab for the city. Third, most main street people I know do not want to punish the rich, they want to be rich (or just be left alone) and they know it will never happen via government handouts.

Atlasman also from Greensboro

Predatory Legislators

Best article in a while. Cannot wait to see how the liberal Obama machine bloggers try to attack it.

National Health Insurance, 'Cap and Trade': Two Steps in the Wrong Direction

"This painful condition has arisen from excess government involvement in the system, tax provisions that encourage the over-utilization of health insurance, and government support of an out-of-control malpractice industry. "

Do not underestimate the tremendous fear of lawsuits and cost to insure them that drive over-utilization. Not sure why this is not getting the attention it deserves other than the fact the Tort lawyers partially own BO and the DNC with the labor union.

Why Isn't Microsoft's Strategy Working Anymore?

Here is my Microsoft experience:

1. Windows has never worked well. Vista is a disaster.
2. My Windows-absed Palm Treo was by far the worst cell phone I ever had having to reboot it every other day.
3. My XBOX360 experienced there ring of death.
4. Microsoaft IE is by far the most buggy browser if you are coding web pages.

With the exception of Microsoft Office, my experience with Redmond has all been bad. I have moved on as well.

-AM

Why Economists Have Downgraded Obama to Bush-Plus

Economists by and large and very thoughtful middle of the road type people. It was thought that Obama was a very thoughtful centrist. Now it is clear he is a liberal idealogue. There is no other way to explain the priorities in his recent budget. You can blame Pelosi and Reid for the politics in the stimulus and omnibus bills (though a little leadership from the WH would have been helpful). However, if you look at Obama 's budget you can see he is just like them. While I do not know any economist, I can say that Obama has lost the confidence of a number of enterpreneurs that voted for him because they thought they were getting a smart centrist. Smart yes, centrist no. I am guessing economist and entrepeneurs think similarly.

Krugman on the Invisible Bond Vigilantes

I have always felt that PK was an
ideologically-driven political hack that distorts economics to support his own radical left-wing political view. You now have proven it using his own words. Great job and great post.

-AM

Why Aren't We Undergoing Another Great Depression?

Why anybody right of Dailykos listens to Krugman is a mystery to me. He is a political hack with an agenda and uses economics as a tool to ratrionalize his redistributionist ideology.

BTW, one big difference is the immense wealth that has been generated over the last 70+ years. This wealth provides a tremendous national cushion against shocks like we have received. Of course, that cushion can easily disappear if our government keeps punishing the capitolist system that created the golden eggs.

-AM

Nothing About This Economy Is Surprising

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
- Alexis de Tocqueville

So I will also start with a famous quote and if you believe it as I do then you can say we are now witnessing the end of the American Republic.

Nice article BTW. To bad the majority of the country just do not get it.
-AM

"Unfortunately, other folks – like, oh, say, most academics, along with every single politician in Washington (except Ron Paul) – do not see the irrefutability of Mises' Argument. No, they have kept doing the same things, over and over, for a century, because what feels good gets votes. Who cares about the eventual consequences? And so it goes -- as the rest of us suffer day after day through this economic version of the Black Death"