Former Fed Chairman Ben Vernanke is speaking on the problems of the US economy and says things are similar now to what they were when this one guy made a speech in 1938 offering his prognosis of the economy then. For background- - according to Hartman there was fiscal tightening in the previous year and the economy was once again stagnating. They aren’t talking about it much but Factory Orders were down in February and this in my mind signals a major slowing, if not reversal of this economy. This 1938 guy said that due to low demand and a lower reproductive population- - that demand would continue sluggish for the foreseeable future. Of course he had no way of knowing about World War II. Now there are bloggers out there who say that the way our of our current economic doldrums is to have another World War. Ben stated that because this economy is the way it is- - you need negative interest rates in real terms- - approaching a negative two percent- - to keep employment levels decent. There was talk about how demand for investment capital is down now from what it was forty or fifty years ago because a company like Facebook or Mac Donalds doesn’t need massive influxes of heavy factory equipment. There is more of an enphasis today on creative brain power- - rather than scads of assembly line workers (which now would be done by robots anyhow) One solution he offered was to make the government the agent of needed demand with infrastructure jobs programs on a major scale. What we need is fiscal stimulous that way. In terms of interest rates we are only in a fraction of the danger we were under Ronald Reagan where we saw a similar ballooning of the Federal Deficet. Ben Vernanke came right out and repudiated the “Supply Side theory”. This is the notion that “Supply creates its own demand”. Recent economic experience has proven this notion to be untrue. Rather the opposite is true. “If demand continues to be chronically low- - this will in time hurt supply”. It was President Bush that appointed him but he was not above criticizing the economic policy of his own boss. For instance there are things the Republicans used to complain endlessly about such as rising energy prices. They also complained about high deficits, and also a high trade imbalance. Ten years ago both the energy picture and the world trade balance was far more adverse than today. But you’d never know it from the lack of republican criticism then, or the abundance of Republican criticism now.
The latest entry of
Washington’s blog at this time is “Government Corruption has become Rampant”. The
usual horror laundry list of items is listed with links you can look up if you
want to see more facts and statistics to justify your shock and horror. It used to be back when I listened to
Christian sermons- - that most Christian pastors held government in major
distrust. Today things are
different. If Shawn Hannity were
President a lot of things would scarcely change at all. We’d just have an increased efficiency in the
Police State we are in now under Bush and Obama. All of the police and Wall Street and
military graft and corruption would remain intact. In time a few of the people who voted for
President Ted Cruz or whatever would wake up and know they’d been duped. But it would only be a loud minority. All of the talking heads at FOX news would
back up the next Republican phase of corrupt government the same way FOX news
didn’t criticize President George W Bush when he was President. So today the progressive democrat is in odd
agreement with the proverbial Christian pastor of fourty-odd years ago that
mistrusted “the government”. One of the
things they mistrusted most was our government’s propensity for getting into
one War after another. My that’s sure
changed over the years. People forget
that the word “Radical” as scary as it sounds- - means “root”. Some of us really want to get to the ROOT of
the problem. That means the yanking out
of a whole lot of political shrubbery.
Whatever democratic candidate we get needs a whole radical perspective
on things which they INTEND to FOLLOW THROUGH on. “Aye, there’s the rub”. Because some people will say anything to get
elected. Then all their political
resolve turns into mush. Political
pollsters consistently indicate the American people want a radical push to the
left, but the political party structure is too fossilized in the tradition and
platitudes of the past. Like a major
earthquake- -it will come sometime. And
to quote that guy on TV talking about Shingles- - “and when it does it won’t be
pretty”. As Lenin said, “You have to
break an egg to make an omelet”. But as
Dr Levy said in one of his last times here “Some changes are painful but must
be made because the prospect of the status quo at some point becomes even more
unthinkable”.
Yesterday Former Vice President Dick Chaney
supposedly said “This time- the United States will be greeted as liberators in
Iraq”. But there are rumors galore that
the United States is giving aid to both sides in this current ISIS conflict,
and the persistent rumor that the United States secretly backs ISIS and wants
them to win. I’m still not entirely sure
who ISIS is. All we know is that a lot
of them are apparently disgrunteled Baathist Iraqui generals who turned bitter
against the United States while in prison camps. To make things more confusing Shawn Hannity
the other kept using the term ISIS when he was referring to these Shiite Yemeni
rebels in this new conflict. Everyone
agrees that our Mideast policy is a ball of massive confusion. But this does not stop Hannity and Israeli
Prime Minister Netenyahoo from saying “The issue is perfectly clear. Radical Islam is the Universal menace”. People like Hannity seem far more concerned
or not about whether you order a whiskey sour at your local bar in Indiana and
you might be gay - - then they are in actually trying to trace out the origens
of all of these conflicts now in the Middle East. So I’m back to what I was saying last
summer. We should just walk away from
the whole thing and leave it to the people with actual “skin in the game” to
fight for themselves. And we should take
our money with us. That means all the
money we have given to the Saudis- - and all of the money we have given to
Israel. I see no earthly reason to
support either country at this point.
I
was annoyed that Sean Hannity had Dennis Prager on his show because Dennis
fawned all over Sean like they were two political peas in a pod. The only issue I agreed with them on solidly
- - was the fact that Hillary Clinton has politically disqualified herself with
this server wipe thing. Engaging in
over-kill condemning ANY proposed treaty with Iran won’t sway people who are on
the fence. Because it’s not just that
one issue but a whole grab of right wing issues you have to agree with them on.
But worst of all people like Prager and
Dr Laura are “moving targets” in that they are continually - - moving farther
to the political right. So far Dennis
hasn’t used the word ‘Nigger’ in a phone call like Laura has, but given the
“mental deterioration” I’ve seen in him in just the past few years, that one is
coming. Prager says just because scripture says to honor your father and mother
doesn’t mean you have to love them. Of
course Dennis is quick to point out that it a prohibition against murder rather
than killing that God is against.
However I would advise Dennis that Jesus had a thing or two to say about
the idea of war in general. But Prager
doesn’t believe in Jesus. Dennis says
that you can tell a truly evil man because a truly evil man dislikes others who
dedicate their live to “fighting evil” like the Governor of Indiana and this
whole religious freedom charade. And by
the way Jews either spying on Americans or directly attacking an American ship-
- is not exactly lily white purity in my book.
This whole thing with Israel and the Saudis getting together is a little
strange. Not to go Yiddish on you but it
kind of puts the kabash on this whole idea that it’s predestined for Jew to
always hate his “Arab brother”. I get
the weird impression that Sean at least thinks when the Bible speaks of a
revival coming to Israel like in the books of Daniel or Revelation that somehow
these two can be a part of that. And all
Israel needs is some Messiah figure to promise them everything and rebuild the
Jewish temple and they’ll be all set.
The trouble is that these passages refer to after the rapture takes
place so if Sean is a Christian he shouldn’t be around to even see that. And the next thing- - if we’re going to be so
“orthodox” or conservative- - would be the rise of the Antichrist in
Israel. As such Israel would be advised
to not be emotionally attached to ANY leader at this time. But Dennis Prager has a whole most of moral
inconsistencies I’ve gone into in the past that I won’t cover again, except to
say my respect for the man is near zero.
In
terms of the soap opera the thing wrong with Ben is that he’s so paranoid and
edgy, that if I were Abigail I sure wouldn’t want to move in with him- -
especially knowing that his biological father is a renound abuser of
women. Besides Abigail’s mother and
brother are going through this crisis, and I’d want to see them through
that. Plus there is a certain
sentimental value to living in Tom and Alice Horton’s house after all these
years. Will Horton is having some sort
of a paranoid break-down. You can’t even
talk to him about anything these days. He
takes everything the wrong way. In terms
of Lucas calling Kate out on her moral hypocracy- - it’s time somebody did. Because Kate was born a manipulator and
she’ll be one all her life- - - and she seldom has much of a moral leg to stand
on and Luke knows this. Afterward I went
for coffee in the courtyard and had one cup.
Earlier Joe gave Connie two cigarettes but she said “They smell funny”
and gave them back to Joe, and I asked Joe “Can I have one?” Joe said no.
Yesterday Joe was complaining about how I’m a moocher. But the ones that complain the most have the
least grounds to do so. I’m pretty sure
Joe hasn’t given me so much as one cigarette in the past six months, and I
haven’t even bothered to ask for about half that period.
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