Guess, what? It’s STILL the economy, stupid…

About 16 years ago, a brilliant man said “it’s the economy, stupid” and began a campaign to unravel the presidency of someone who I will refer to as B1. B1 paid attention to all sorts of foreign policy issues, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end the Cold War and created others, such as the Persian Gulf War. What he failed to do was address important domestic policies in a time when the country was struggling to get out of a recession. It feels almost like déjà vu, but today, we have another president, B2, who has created and helped further havoc and chaos on the world stage by starting wars, destabilizing regions, tumbling the economic markets and destroying what was left of domestic tranquility by turning our budget surplus into a deficit of over $50 TRILLION DOLLARS (a number so large that even the nimblest economist has trouble fathoming the length of time it will take us to get out of this muck).

B2, governmental appointees, elected officials and their collective knowledge bases when coupled with all of these modern day plagues, have helped create the environment for a perfect storm that could result in an economic meltdown of the world financial markets. Not to preach doom and gloom, but right now, America and the economy has been bushwhacked, bamboozled and led astray. Our politicians are struggling with ways to change what seems to be our ever expanding debt and economic trouble. Unemployment is up, the financial markets are down, foreclosures are up, savings are down…look, I could go on and on with my ups and downs (all of which are negative), but I presume my readers are getting the gist of what I am saying. We are going through some stuff and I believe that it will get worse before it can get better.

Now here is where I get to ranting -- the $700 BILLION DOLLAR economic package recently passed by Congress is just a small percentage of the U.S. deficit, and some would ask, what’s the big deal? The big deal is that we, the American taxpayers cannot afford another penny, that’s what. We are footing the bill by spending more than $10 billion dollars a month (which in case you are wondering, this works out to approximately $2.4 billion dollars a week, more than $340 million dollars a day, $14 million dollars an hour and $238,425 a minute) in Iraq when that country has a budgetary surplus (guess they are smarter than us because we are footing the bill for their government and infrastructure when they have money and we do not…we can only hope that China will be as benevolent when it comes time for us to repay some of the money we owe them). We are losing our homes. Our 401k accounts are in the shrinking at an alarming rate and for those who have retired or hope to retire in the next 3-5 years, they do not have the time to wait for the economy bounce back. Our children are having a more difficult time getting student loans, so they are cannot afford an education in order to get a job, which is somewhat moot anyway since unemployment is up. Our savings are non-existent. We are losing our jobs. Our credit cards that we relied on to help bridge the gap between what we brought in and what we needed have dried up. The big deal is that the majority of Americans are catching hell. And, let me add a bit of a qualifier to my previous statement. I realize that many believe that there are some Americans who will not feel the effects of this economic down turn because they are have money to burn, however, it is one thing to burn your own money and quite another for some CEO to burn it for you.

It’s STILL the economy and our economy is teetering on the brink. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Recession is natural, depression is not. If we can just have our politicians and their appointees do sensible things and make the necessary changes in budgetary spending, we can emerge as a better, stronger America. However, we need a change and we cannot afford to wait because it would just be stupid to do so…

$700 Billion isn't enough...let's make it an even $1 Trillion

Gee whiz, the U.S. government has certainly been busy this weekend. Senators working close to the end of the fiscal year. Agencies scurrying trying to resolve issues. My goodness, it is looking like the federal government is working in overdrive and making overtime. However, the question of the day is -- will this economic package save the U.S. economy from the coming depression? No, it is not going to work. Recession is a part of the natural economic process. We have one every 7-10 years. However, this time around, it has been exacerbated by poor management and business practices by certain companies with mega-sized lobbying firms. So, why would you give your money to someone who has already mismanaged their own? These companies are in this mess because they screwed up their money, now the federal government wants to give them OUR money, just because. Why would someone think that they would be more careful with someone else's money to play with?

Some have lobbied for greater accountability which in theory is great, however, it will not come. Others have demanded new management for these entities, another theory which is wonderful, but will not work. In order for a corporation to function, those people at the top of the pyramid extend their reach all the way to the base of the aforementioned pyramid and create a certain type of culture. Sometimes this culture is successful and everyone is happy (i.e. Google and Microsoft) and other times it breaks down under its own excess, bloated ego and mismanagement (does anyone remember a company named Arthur Anderson). Regardless, when there is a change at the top, the underlying culture of the corporation does not change because such behavior is learned and then ingrained.

The CEOs can leave, but the reality is that even after they exit, their management will still be firmly in place. Their boards, their executives, their administrations will still be at these floundering companies. I think that people fail to realize that many of the executives and members of the various boards of directors are long time corporate and political cronies. The CEOs will receive their golden parachutes and the next person who takes the helm will be someone with a similar background, understanding and perhaps someone groomed by the person who JUST got a severance package. The policies will be the same because the structure that existed is the one that made them all that money in the first place. It is unfortunate, but CEOs and the BODs bounce around from company to company. Watch, the next thing you will hear is that the former CEO of Lehman or AIG is now the chief strategist/advisor for someone's political campaign, was elected to some company's BOD or is the NEW CEO of some other company that was doing just fine. It's trifling and pitiful, but the hallmark of our type of capitalism which is rife with favoritism and crony-ism.

Now, back to the money (as though I was ever really discussing anything else). $700 billion dollars seems like a lot of money to throw at these institutions, but it is not. Especially since the money may not be as valuable as the cotton blend paper it is printed on. So, I say let's make it $1 trillion. That number sounds much more impressive and probably closer to what it would take to fix some of the problems that cronyism has bought us...