Bloggity Blog

I sometimes feel a need to blog just to read myself blogging. Well, no, not really. I feel that way now, and that's a first for me. Looking at the news of the day, and reflecting on events of the past two years, I see trends driving the world in its current Titanic-to-the-iceberg direction. According to the movie, they saw the iceberg before they hit it, but the Titanic was going too fast to miss it. Do the movers and shakers of the world understand that we're heading towards a global economic disaster, are they willing to avoid it, and is it not already too late?

About two years ago, the market price of crude oil in the U.S. started what looked like an endless rise. Prices at the pump went up, up, up. Consumer luxury budgets went down, down, down, and before long necessity budgets started to follow. The housing market stopped being a sure-fire positive ROI (return on investment) requiring only a listing fee as an investment. That was Phase I of the World Economic Decline.

As we approached the general election in 2008, the world started to wake up and smell the debt. U.S. currency started to tumble in comparison to the Euro and the Yen. This provided plenty of gloating fuel at the time. A superpower with an unstable economy is like...Russia! Only Russia is doing better than the U.S.! Those nations who would not exist or have their level of prosperity save for the assistance of the U.S. were particularly acrimonious about our difficulties. No offers to help smooth out the troubles were forthcoming.

Right before the general election, Senator McCain decided to "suspend" his campaign to fix the problem. Misbehaving kids get longer suspensions than his campaign had. His solution was to push for a $700B bailout. Congress gave a $350B spending card to Paulson, Bush's secretary of the Treasury, with no requirement for oversight or accountability. One of President Bush's last acts as POTUS was to release the other $350B as well.

The nation was reeling from the increasing pace of "bailouts" and spending by congress. Those few who did the math, and didn't go insane outright, started sounding alarm bells, to which the newly installed BHO administration snorted, "you're just jealous because you didn't win!" BHO then proceeded to break every campaign promise ever made in record time. Even former-pres W.J. Clinton was careful and deliberate in comparison. In the meantime, every major bank and car manufacturer was hitting up congress for spending money!

Now everyone who claims to have been instrumental in getting BHO elected wants payback. Just a few million here, a couple hundred million there. No one cares about a little pork anyway, slimed NY Senator Chuck Schumer. Translation, "you're just jealous because we're in charge of the Senate, and you're not."

But it's the future which concerns me most. In the past, economic setbacks were overcome by market forces, NOT government intervention! A few people get crappy jobs, and do them badly when the government gets involved. Not worth the effort! To make an economy improve, kick up the activity in the private sector! Lower taxes! When taxes drop, people lose their frakking minds, and invest like there's no tomorrow. When taxes go up, people look for tax shelters. Investment, risk-taking, and consumer spending are all discouraged. Tax revenues plummet. Taxes end up going up again to cover the budget which doesn't care if less revenue came in.

Yet, no one is trying to steer around this iceberg! The FDR New Deal didn't fix the Depression! It took a massive new market for military industrial goods to employ every available warm body, creating a secondary market for everything from automobiles to pizza, to fix that hosed-up economy. Commerce seems to be a dirty word to liberals. Yet without commerce, there is no income to tax to fund their little social engineering projects.

Today General Motors announced (paraphrased) "You know that $25B you loaned us? Turns out it wasn't enough, and we might go bankrupt anyway. Sorry."

So, it's all looking pretty murky because the people who can do something are playing ugly little political games and paying back favors, and NOT getting their hands dirty trying to FIX this mess! Popularity be damned! You're not going to have a chance in hell of getting re-elected in 2012 if you can't stop the disaster today!

Why bother? They're not listening.