STRANGLING OUR ECONOMIC BABY WITH ITS OWN UMBILICAL
(….while at the same time trying to revive it with mouth to mouth stimulus)

I’ve never had any pretensions of being an economics or fiscal policy expert, far from it. Like a lot of other folks I have to take my boots off to count to twenty Even so, innate common sense tells me that two plus two still results with four, but all those accounting slight-of-hand maneuvers by the Fed and the Treasury for the past two years are somehow coming up with five and a half instead.

To me, all their maneuvers are the equivalent of strangling our economic baby with its own umbilical….while at the same time trying to revive it with mouth to mouth stimulus. And they’re wondering why the economy is barely breathing….and why jobs having any meaningful import….are like proverbial hens’ teeth….non-existent.

But what do I know….I never got the hang of “New Math”!

The President’s latest “Jobs Bill” proposal which he’s trying to shove through our Congressional legislative swampland seems like just one more bit of mouth to mouth stimulus to me. While some aspects of it have merit it doesn’t really address the two fundamental issues involved.

The two fundamental issues involved are:

a) Without a strong industrial and manufacturing base no economy in the world can either be revived….or kept going.

b) Without a corresponding rational taxation and regulatory system to go with it, any economy will, sooner or later, just shrivel up and die.

Well, on both these counts we’re in trouble. We’ve allowed our once strong and dynamic industrial and manufacturing base to erode. Granted, there are some new industries emerging, but, because of the irrational and constricting system of taxation and regulation that’s been allowed to evolve, those who might have both the means and the interest to mount any enterprise here….aren’t….preferring to gamble with offshore ones instead. Such is the American economy today.

So unless any of our career politicos face up to such fundamentals there’s no snowball’s chance in hell that our economy will be where it once was…. any time soon. Green machines, IT, and related enterprises of one kind or another don’t produce steel. They don’t produce shoes. They don’t produce textiles. They don’t even produce plastic, or much of anything else. For these we’re thus forced to depend on others, others who may or may not give a damn about either our quality standards or reliability. We’ve traded long term economic health for cheap import4ed goods to give us the illusion we’re living the “good life”.

I’ve now come to believe that our best hope for reviving our economy is if our government will find the smarts to step back, get out of our way, and turn our inherent capacity to produce….loose. That would do it….and then our economic baby might manage to grow up.

CENTURION