A strong economy is what I want

The recently passed stimulus bill is a symptom of our economic problems. Because we refuse to reduce government spending, we borrow money from foreign governments and inflate the money supply (and pretend there is low inflation) to fund our government, our illegitimate war and consumer spending. Instead of our government and citizens admitting their collective addiction to overspending, the government, at our urging, has decided to rain dollars down upon us to cure our economic ills. Of course, other spending will not be reduced; so, thank Communist China for your check.

Our economy and our federal, state and local governments are in trouble because we believe that we can base our economy on consumerism, and somehow believe that contrary to our past and every other emerging economy, we can prosper without having a vibrant manufacturing sector. In other words, we believe that saving, investment, capital formation and production can be replaced by borrowing, spending and importing. Meanwhile the dollar is sinking (meaning those foreign-made goods will no longer be as cheap) and our trade deficit grows ever larger as we pretend that the value of the dollar has no relationship to the cost of imported oil.

Of course, what was deemed to be a positive impact of these policies, the recent phony real estate bubble economy, is, in fact, a symptom of the problem. The policy of inflating the money supply by maintaining artificially low interest rates, combined with lax lending standards and the perverted use of ARMs, interest-only loans and negative amortization ARMs helped feed the hunger of slobbering speculators, while we either jealously watched or joined in. Now, all of those involved in the “party” want to be bailed out with principal reductions, interest-rate freezes and the like. So, we want to reward those who engaged in speculation and took a risk or who borrowed against equity that really didn’t exist, while those who saved for consumer purchases and purchased homes based on sound financial principles pay for it, like all unnecessary government debt, for years to come.

I have a dream that one day we will return to a “real” economy, instead of one based on the exploitation of illegal aliens, domestic and foreign sweatshops, ridiculous easy credit, massive personal and government debt, a devalued dollar, phony government inflation and employment data, financial machinations and trade deficits. I only hope that it happens by choice, otherwise, it will be a long painful transition back to sanity.