The mid-term elections are over, minus the lawsuits that could be filed in Alaska and Nevada. There has been a shift in the House of Representatives of the like that has not been seen since the Hoover administration was ejected from Washington for their Progressive spending habits. The Senate is still barely in Democrat control, however, the Senate Democrats who were not up for re-election this year just witnessed their colleagues go down like a Mike Tyson challenger (prior to prison, that is). They are going to know that this could be them in 2012 and will be far less likely to step up to the noose when Obama comes to place it around their necks when he demands their support for his Marxist programs.
Yes, I do believe that Obama will not moderate and come to the middle like Clinton did. It is not in his nature. The racial divisions will grow wider, the calls of foul play and non-partisanship will grow shriller. The crisis is still maturing. We will all need to be strong in the coming years.
The problems that this country faces have been a long time coming and will not be fixed in two, four, or even ten years. As a people, we must commit to repairing our nation and keeping it foremost in our hearts and our minds. We are broken; as a nation we have no money, a dearth of morals, and an arrogant blindness to reality. Why so glum? I'm just sober, is all.
America owes a lot of money to a lot of people. Despite the obvious differences in monetary policy, nations can get into the same trouble as a spendthrift with a credit card(s). We owe a lot of money. That debt has interest that is accumulating. Already, the interest on the debt that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have accumulated amounts to something like $300 Billion per fiscal budget. In 2012 that figure will be over $500 Billion. Remember, they are accumulating the debt monthly and the interest is cumulative to principal. That last figure is higher than any one deficit that George W. Bush signed off on. That figure is higher than some of the Federal budgets under President Nixon. The figure could reach $1 Trillion per fiscal budget by 2020. This is just the interest on the debt...we are not even talking about paying down the principal. Obama and team have been borrowing money to make the interest payments. Look at the bond market. We are auctioning debt every week to the amount of $30-50 Billion. How does this get paid back? I've discussed monetary policy in earlier entries, so I'll take another tack.
Under Reagan, our economy grew between 5-10% year over year (that is 5% plus 5% on top of that each year). It took over 7 years to pull back the money that the Federal Reserve pumped into the economy under President Carter. If I recall, they increased the monetary supply by 11%. Under Bush and Obama, the Reserve ran up the monetary supply by something like 120% Uh, oh, is right.
Unions were the biggest monetary contributers in this election cycle by far. Can we say, "buying an election" boys and girls. They lost all that money since most of their people went down to defeat last night. Way to blow money. The evil corporations donated much less to either party this cycle. Republicans will have to resist the temptation that their brethren gave into over the 1994-2006 run that they enjoyed. Spending money became easier and easier the more they did it. Just ask a dieter that says that they are only going to have one piece of candy on Halloween. Can the Republicans learn that lesson? Can they overcome human nature? Remember, virtue can be hard to maintain. We are only human in the end and prone to temptation.
Even if we run double digit economic growth for 20 years, year over year over year, we will not have enough to pay down the principal that has already been borrowed. Inflation or default looms in our future. What does this spell for our children and our retirement? This will happen regardless of which party is in power. It is simply too late already to keep this car from going over a cliff. The choice is what kind of crash landing will we have?
Simply handing the credit cards back to the recovering spend-a-holics is not enough. This is going to take fiscal austerity and discipline, the likes that causes rioting in the streets; and not that pansy stuff the French play at. Social Security is going to have to be abolished for those not yet 65 (or 67). Medicare and Medicaid are going to have to be privatized or dismantled. Laws against unfunded liabilities will have to be passed. Congress can not exempt themselves from laws (that is another entry). Budgets must be within 5% of "balanced" (countries really do work differently than people, but that is another entry). Do I have answers? I have ideas that can be worked out and improved upon, but no ready answers. There simply is no alternative. We must face this crisis soberly.
The Republicans stand to lose a lot by winning. They are seen by the Tea Party as the ones that can restore our faith in ourselves and our country. In 2012, mark my words, more RINOs will be purged. The Conservative wing of the Republican party will harden just as the Socialist wing has now hardened with this election. The Blue Dogs have nearly been exterminated this time around, along with a whole lot of long-serving incumbents. Pelosi may retire, but Reid, Boxer, Schumer, Frank and others remain.
This is not the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, as Winston Churchill may have once said. This is a fragile hope that the ones we look to for a fix to this mess are the right ones. The coming crisis will either reaffirm our hopes these are the right stewards (Tea Party approved) or forever crush our faith in the current system. If we lose faith in our current system then there will be violent change and likely not for the better.
I say that last one because my generation does not put up with all the blah, blah, blah rhetoric that Boomer (and Silent) politicians spout. The X'ers will give this country change, alright, and we won't be talking about it either. We will simply take action and establish a stable system, politically and economically. I honestly can not say if it will be a restoration of the Republic or a founding of American Fascism. We will either restore or reboot, but we will not allow the situation to continue.
The sun creeps up on the horizon now, and the coyote is now noticing that there is something casting a shadow in the sky above. Let us see how he handles it.
Live well.
--Zavost
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