Come on now, we all know what happened: Paulson and Bernanke sold Congress a bill of goods; Congress took it all in and sold it to the masses – the clowns who screwed up must be bailed, for the sake of all of us. If not, an apocalypse was sure to follow. What was sure to follow was in fact a normal cleansing process and a grounded economy.
And now we have a Fed which cannot get out of its own way - by refusing to sit on its hands when we told it to (wasting all that air fare!) - and an overreaching administration which by instinct puts government ahead of everything else. Isn’t that about it folks? Doesn’t that just about explain this zombie economy of ours? We think so. If you need more, see Garrett and Rhine’s piece in the Jan/Feb/2011 St Louis Fed Review, “Economic Freedom and Employment Growth in the US.” Just in case that publication cannot be found on your coffee table, witness today’s NFIB Feb small business optimism index, which tanked – hiring plans and economic outlook both in the cellar. The cascade of regulations and higher taxes that are the signature of the left explains this result.
Our colleagues tell us, “Now don’t get into politics.” Of course we’ll “get into politics.” We’ll get into anything that plays the key role of economic retardant - in this case, planners knowing what’s best for the rest of us.
There will be no acceleration, no escape velocity; that is, not until there is another great big crisis. Yellen as Fed chair is a crisis but not the right kind. Obama-at-the-helm is a crisis (unless E-Z style social democracies are your thing, or more exactly, if France is your thing) but Obama doesn’t even register on most radar screens any longer. We need something grander to expose this house of cards; that should be just around the corner.
Robert Craven
And now we have a Fed which cannot get out of its own way - by refusing to sit on its hands when we told it to (wasting all that air fare!) - and an overreaching administration which by instinct puts government ahead of everything else. Isn’t that about it folks? Doesn’t that just about explain this zombie economy of ours? We think so. If you need more, see Garrett and Rhine’s piece in the Jan/Feb/2011 St Louis Fed Review, “Economic Freedom and Employment Growth in the US.” Just in case that publication cannot be found on your coffee table, witness today’s NFIB Feb small business optimism index, which tanked – hiring plans and economic outlook both in the cellar. The cascade of regulations and higher taxes that are the signature of the left explains this result.
Our colleagues tell us, “Now don’t get into politics.” Of course we’ll “get into politics.” We’ll get into anything that plays the key role of economic retardant - in this case, planners knowing what’s best for the rest of us.
There will be no acceleration, no escape velocity; that is, not until there is another great big crisis. Yellen as Fed chair is a crisis but not the right kind. Obama-at-the-helm is a crisis (unless E-Z style social democracies are your thing, or more exactly, if France is your thing) but Obama doesn’t even register on most radar screens any longer. We need something grander to expose this house of cards; that should be just around the corner.
Robert Craven
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