Nick

What? You mean it won’t sink like a stone until Obama creates a 2 trillion dollar deficit trying to spend our way out of it?

The debt being there is a huge problem. Opportunity is created when jobs are created. The private sector could create more jobs than the federal government by leaps and bounds with the right policies …

When you have a government PICKING winners and losers (auto bailout) that is counter productive to people feeling like they can invest in strong companies with any confidence. nobody knows the value of anything as compared to others.

Our economy is choked to the gills with toxic debt. It will sink like a stone until that debt has worked its way through the system. There’s nothing Obama or anyone else can do about it.

You are exactly right and it is more than theory. This is the way business is done in Chicago. This is why Chicago, of all the major cities, suffers the least from work stoppages/strikes, even threats are minimal. More bribes, deals, understandings, financial back scratching, and palm greasing takes place here than anywhere else and the quid pro quo is power, entrenched power. Things may slow down a bit though, as many of the wheeler dealers have made their way to DC and more are on their way.

After much observation, I have decided that when otherwise bright people appear to be doing something obviously stupid, it is not because they are stupid. It is because they have goals not made public.

Sometimes the goal is simply denial. Sometime’s it’s denial that there’s evil in the world. Sometime’s it’s denial that things sometimes work backwards: you have to treat bad people badly to make them behave. But denial is a dangerous force, and an irresponsible one.

One noteworthy trend over the past five years or so has been a marked tendency in left-of-center commentators to be more pessimistic about the economic outlook than right-of-center commentators have been. I see three factors at work here:

1. I believe left-wing politics and pessimism are generally correlated traits.
2. Left-of-center commentators are generally smarter than right-of-center ones and pessimism was the correct position.
3. People inclined to be hostile to the incumbent administration are naturally disposed to believe that disaster looms around the corner.
Optimism Inversion

“Old Chief:

After much observation, I have decided that when otherwise bright people appear to be doing something obviously stupid, it is not because they are stupid. It is because they have goals not made public. The cover goal may be stupid, but it is publicly acceptable. The real purpose is quite clever, but not publicly acceptable.

Example? Disarming the people in order to reduce crime is demonstrably stupid; indeed, counterproductive. The folks advocating general disarmament are not stupid. Therefore, they have another purpose other then the stated one.

Another? Yielding to the demands of terrorists just gets you more terrorism. You can easily name several other examples.

What could that be? I just wonder.

So, spending 2.8 trillion dollars (or whatever the number is today) to ’stimulate’ the economy is obviously stupid. One does not correct the ravages of excessive debt by going into more debt. What could be the real purpose?

My theory is that the Chicago Way is to move very large amounts of money around very fast, distributing it in a way to secure the future of selected politicians, and guaranteeing that political power remains in the hands of selected groups. We, the people, will be distracted by razzle-dazzle and never know what happened to our money, or our freedom.

You will only slowly come to realize that you are poorer and more enslaved. The politicians will then call for a new, improved program which will lead to more poverty and less freedom.

Obama will make Madoff look like a picker. Hell, he will make FDR, who installed the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all, “Social Security,” look like a piker.

Then, everybody will get the government they deserve.” # # #

I think he’s got it. The more fear BO whips up, the easier this will be for him to accomplish: socializing the great Mercantile Power, castrating us, and locking down power for the Left for the foreseeable future. The Leftists’ erotic daydream, the great goal of all their striving–to take down the Free, Capitalist Superpower, and arrogate all that power to themselves.

“Where’s the bottom?”
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/01/08/wheres-the-bottom/#more-1787

Thought-provoking post, and fascinating (if grim) responses.

As Vanderleun would say:

Your own petard. Ass. Hoist.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146299905466537.html