One of the cardinal rules in life is that you never lend money to friends, especially broke ones. I can't help but see the recently announced economic stimulus package as such a loan, just amongst 300 million of our closest friends. The $140+ billion is really just a loan to ourselves since we are running a deficit, all while we have a national debt that is worth 69% of the US GDP and three times the current federal budget. In a nation where thousands of homeonwers are losing their homes due to poor financial planning, the plan for getting the economy back on track is to count on continued poor financial planning by those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale - they are the ones most likely to spend and not save their rebate. Great - we all just took out a loan to buy crap we don't need instead of addressing the debt we are swimming in personally and collectively. I will personally contribute to the trade deficit by buying an iPhone.
On another note, I think that Fred Thompson should be considered as a potential AG now that he is out of the race. He clearly meets the Clinton requirements for any job as he not only hung around some AG's for his role on Law and Order, but he also played one on TV. That's at least twice the qualifications for the role of AG than Hillary Clinton has for being president.
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3 comments:
Doesn't the lending analogy presume that it belonged to the government as some autonomous entity in the first place??? That's a POV I find revolting.
I mean if you want to buy an iPhone with your own money that the government decided not to spend on your behalf.....great for you! As an AAPL shareholder....great for me!
Jon is correct - we are only owing ourselves our own money that the government has chosen to spend for us. I guess my point is more that the federal government has made $9 trillion worth of commitments. I would suggest that even if we are to write some of those off, there is still a likely chance that a good bit of it will get paid. And when someone's personal finances are as screwed up as the federal governments, the last thing they should be looking to do is borrow more money to spend on throw away junk when the reality of Social Security, Medicare, education, and other programs are in the balance.
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