I must have a mental illness. I see a Paulie K. column and I’m repulsed, but yet, I cannot look away. Today our gutter economist is once again lamenting inaction by the government:
The latest economic data have dashed any hope of a quick end to America’s job drought, which has already gone on so long that the average unemployed American has been out of work for almost 40 weeks. Yet there is no political will to do anything about the situation. Far from being ready to spend more on job creation, both parties agree that it’s time to slash spending — destroying jobs in the process — with the only difference being one of degree.
Stimuli I & II were unprecedented in American economic history and were abject failures. Paulie solution is to fail on a grander scale.
Nor is the Federal Reserve riding to the rescue. On Tuesday, Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, acknowledged the grimness of the economic picture but indicated that he will do nothing about it.
QE I & II (quantitative easing), where the Feds tried printing huge amounts of worthless paper and dumping it into the economy has been described as “monetary porn”, “dollar conjuring”, and “a practice resembling drinking poison to quench thirst.” Whatever you want to call it, it has devalued the dollar and probably pushed us closer to runaway inflation.
And debt relief for homeowners — which could have done a lot to promote overall economic recovery — has simply dropped off the agenda. The existing program for mortgage relief has been a bust, spending only a tiny fraction of the funds allocated, but there seems to be no interest in revamping and restarting the effort.
He calls it “debt relief for homeowners”. I call it rewarding bad behavior. Affirmative action for loan defaulters. I quit reading after that. Even I have limits to my self-abuse.
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