Is More "Easy" Money Really The Answer?

I've been thinking it for a while, and even wrote about it in my 2009 Outlook (to be posted later), but I think this reporter does a fantastic job of pointing out the follies in the methods the government is seriously considering to get us out of these economic problems.

Click here to the Read the Article

To summarize a couple of his points:

1- Making it easy again for people to get loans is not going to solve the problem, in fact it is what caused our current problems.

2- Sending more money to consumers as tax rebates that will only come this year is not going to boost consumer spending. Even if it did, is that really how we want our economy to work?

3- If this truly is to be the "Age of Responsibility" as Obama put it in his speech (more on that from me later), then why is our government trying to take away the responsibility of companies and individuals by trying to send them money as fast as they can with the sole purpose of getting them to spend exuberantly? I'll add to that: Our government is, in effect, saying two things with their actions. 1. The private sector can't make good decisions as evidenced by the poor decisions that got us in this mess, so we are going to take on the decision making for them. 2. We want everyone to be responsible for their actions, but we are going to make sure that no one suffers much of the consequences of those actions.

Please read the above article. While the media and a large portion of the people out there like the idea of easy money, it is not going to help us in the long run.

You Gotta Love the Democrats

I was reading through the headlines like I usually do to find something interesting and noticed that Obama had pledged to fix our entitlement programs. I wish him the best in this endeavor and I honestly hope he can get something done.

At another part of the article however I found these humorous gems: [Obama] named Nancy Killefer as his administration's chief performance officer, creating a new White House position aimed at eliminating government waste and improving efficiency. Wait a minute...creating new positions and adding to the size of government in order to reduce government problems and eliminate waste? I, for one, hope he also creates an oversite committee who would be responsible for reviewing the work of a committee who would be responsible for reviewing the work of this new role to ensure that no one is wasting their time and our money.

He also talked about how concerned he is with the size of deficit he is receiving, almost trying to blame that debt on the Bush administration. This is, of course, after he has released his proposal to finance a $700 to $1 trillion stimulus plan and after his fellows in the legislature have already been on a spending spree to save us from suffering due to poor decisions we made.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I found these two items rather funny.