R22 Discussion Group

Brad,
I'm sorry the your candidate didn't win the election, but I doubt that it  is 
fair to accuse the left of finally seeing that Mr. Obama can't do everything  
he has promised. The man isn't even in office yet and the "righties" are 
already  pinning our current problems on him. After eight years of an 
administration that  really was a farce, at least give Obama four years to try and rectify 
the screw  ups of this current administration.on  Don't even try to call me a 
lefty or  a righty because I don't wear lapels that you can pin a label on. 
I'm just an  average "Joe" trying to get this country back on the right track. 
The ultra  right wing conservative nut jobs have run this country into the 
ground and now  it needs fixing. Using the term conservative with the current 
administration is  an insult to all true conservatives.
Hopefully the very first act Mr. Obama will sign will make stem cells  
available for research. It might come in time to save a very good friends life.  I 
can't even begin to tell you how pissed off HE is at this president.

Rummy.......time for a drink and football.

In a message dated 11/23/2008 8:24:23 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
flybrad at gmail.com writes:

Ed,

Well, the chickens have come home to roost, so to speak. I  don't envy
President-elect Obama and the problems he's been handed.   Perhaps Stan
is correct - is it too late to ask for a recount?  It's  been a lot of
fun watching the far left get their panties in a wad the last  two
weeks after suddenly realizing that their Chosen One can't  possibly
deliver on 10% of what he promised. Like most incoming  Presidents,
he's stuck with a lot of policies handed to him from the  previous
administration.  He won't pull out of Iraq on his promised  time
schedule, he won't find an easy solution to Afghanistan, and there  is
no "magic bullet" for our current economic woes. There are no  quick
solutions and my guess is that the current financial pain  we're
suffering from will last a good bit longer.  Throwing money at  the big
three automakers will only breathe a few months or years of life  into
a broken business model.  Personally, I'd sure like a do-over on  the
bank bailout. One can only hope that Obama is as smart as  his
supporters have promised us he is - he'll need some smarts for  sure.
So far he's picked some really good people, not all of them by  any
means, but some.

Attached is an article from the Houston  Chronicle that does a pretty
good job of outlining our problems.  It  isn't easy being a
conservative these days, but I for one haven't given up  hope.
Sometimes people need to be beaten about the head and shoulders  for
the lessons to take hold, or as we say in flight training,  "the
beatings will continue until morale improves".

Unlike the far  left for the past eight years, I'm not going to berate
the President for  his every little miss-step.  I sincerely hope he is
The One.   That said, I'm preparing just in case he isn't.

On an unrelated note,  did you know that the turkeys we eat for
Thanksgiving are actually  killed?  I've been laughing my ass off at
the "looney lefties"  including the New York Times going berserk over
Sarah Palin giving an  interview while turkeys were being processed in
the background.  For  someone supposedly headed for the "dustbin of
history", they sure pay a lot  of attention to her every move.

Brad

America's math  problem yields no simple solutions
Much of the blame rests with government  spending
By PAUL W. HOBBY
Nov. 21, 2008, 8:11PM

So America  can still amaze the world.

Is the election of President-elect Barack  Obama a blessed
self-correction or radical over-correction for the world's  greatest
nation? We can't know just yet. But, no matter how you voted, we  have
to close ranks as a nation at this moment in history, because  the
tripod of American authority in the world is dangerously  unstable.

The tripod consists of moral authority, economic authority  and
military authority. For reasons I need not detail, each of these  legs
is stressed as they haven't been in a very long while. In large  part
whether we succeed or fail in restoring our balance is about  simple
arithmetic. A serious math problem lurks in the shadows  that
heretofore neither party has been willing to address in a serious  way.

Succinctly stated, the math problem is that the federal  government
spends too much — a lot too much. The current deficit is a  record $455
billion (before the bailout). The national debt is $10.5  trillion.

The reason for the inattention is that politics doesn't like  math
problems. Speeches are easier, symbols are safe and  personal
criticisms are the very best, because those things don't  require
anything of us, the people. They don't require introspection,  or
sacrifice or sober prioritization of needs and wants. But maybe,  if
there is a moment for hard reality to emerge, it is at the end of  a
political season. Just as it took a Southerner in LBJ to pass  civil
rights reform, real spending reform may have to come from a  Democrat
(LBJ had a balanced budget in 1969).

Math problems are  hard, but they undergird the universe. You cannot
outrun or outtalk or out  organize the math problem any more than you
can outtalk or outrun physical  gravity. This is a problem that
threatens the strength of our currency,  inhibits the government's
ability to respond to the current fiscal crisis,  and diverts precious
dollars from infrastructure, education and all forms  of long-term
public investment.

How did we get here? You know the  answer at some level. We are all
guilty of wanting to consume now and pay  later. Politics is forever
the struggle between today (current services)  and tomorrow (education
and physical infrastructure), and today usually  gives tomorrow a solid
whipping. For the "values voter" the math problem  also has a moral
dimension, because the practice of shipping the tab for  our lifestyle
to our children and grandchildren is truly obscene.  Ironically, the
best news for rich folks is that we can't tax our way out  of a mess of
this proportion. In a global economy, high marginal tax rates  will
cause capital and tax base to migrate elsewhere.

Democrats  traditionally ignore the math problem. They just don't turn
in their  homework and figure that it will all be OK as long as the tax
code is  useful as a punitive device for administering social justice
rather than an  equitable means for funding government. For their part,
the Republicans  cheat on the math problem. They talk about fiscal
restraint and then spend  on their contributors in a way that makes the
drunkest of sailors blush.  They say that if we reduce revenue enough
we can eventually balance the  budget. We have seen this "new" math
before when we were told that  supply-side economics would magically
erase the deficit problem. It is true  that tax cuts do act as economic
stimulus, but the temporary stimulus is  ultimately empty without
spending restraint.

Beyond government  spending for a moment, the monetary new math said
that $2.5 trillion in  excess leverage (comparing the traditional
relationship of bank debt to  GDP) was OK because the risk had been
securitized through asset-lite  Enronomics, where the markets parse
derivative and speculative risk  intelligently, and create wealth for
the most efficient market participants  — in the absence of any
fundamental value creation in the underlying  economy. It wasn't OK,
and a lot of people are getting hurt who never  bargained for the risks
they now face.

Our approach to the public  sector over the last eight years has been
if you disparage government long  enough it will get better. Clearly
that hasn't worked. Obama thinks that  government is important and that
it can help people, but it can only do so  if it is fiscally strong.
His budget cuts, therefore, would spring from a  different motivation.
Will that be enough to make them palatable? I don't  know, but I do
know that the math problem demands that he  try.

Perhaps the ultimate fiscal blunt instrument, a balanced  budget
amendment (with appropriate exceptions for war or fiscal  emergency),
may be the bad idea whose time has come. Congress under both  parties
has been unable to discipline itself without it. Make no mistake,  this
mathematical exercise will be painful; all spending, not just  domestic
discretionary spending, (38 percent of the total) must be on  the
table. The only spending that is truly nondiscretionary is interest  on
the national debt.

Obama is very smart, and he gives a very good  speech. If he simply
allows the latter gift to overcome the former gift, we  may temporarily
restore some moral authority in the world, and at least the  folks who
hate us will have to come up with a whole new set of reasons to  do so.

But this won't last; the math problem will ultimately impoverish  us,
and beggars don't retain their moral authority very long. Real  change
demands that the political conversation begins to track the  fiscal
reality for the first time in a long time.

When I first met  Obama in June 2007, I found him, as millions of
others have, to be a  special person. Is he special enough to lead us
into the math problem with  the kind of aspirational tone that got him
elected? I think so.

I  hope so.

I pray so.

Hobby is a Houston businessman with  extensive experience in private
and public finance.

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Andrew, Elle & Herb, comments on your posts.