For those of you in to such things.
Me, I’m more concerned about things like this: because honestly, who doesn’t think a needy narcissist wouldn’t pull out all stops to protect appearances and buy himself back claps and face time from that portion of the public who desperately wants to believe…?
I wouldn’t put it past them, especially inlight of such information as these two related stories
http://tiny.cc/v4bly
http://tiny.cc/zn1iv
Bernanke and Geitner are playing with fire. Sure, a cheap dollar will boost some exports, but, by the same token it will cause the price of oil to skyrocket, and bring on all of the ripple effect price increases such a move would have.
Not to mention that it would actually reduce the profits that farmers and agrobusiness are currently making exporting produce, in a year where demand is at record highs for such commodities!
The same idiots that believe more stimulus is what our economy needs are going to be resposible for ushering in Weimar-USA. All in the interest of getting the messiah a second term; let’s hope their sights aren’t secretly set on a lifelong one…
If foreign imports become relatively more expensive it might stimulate some domestic production. This doesn’t happen overnight, of course, and it’s just one piece of a much larger economic picture with other net-negatives as Mr. Reed documents above.
American politicians deserve their criticism for being more concerned with short-term results and re-election over long-term health. How long we’ll continue to pay the price is anyone’s guess, but I’ll put the over/under at “forever” and take the over.
Well, there’s this: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2010/10/27/bonds-predict-inflation-fed-prepares-quantitative-easing/
Those in the know are betting on inflation.
Your best bet in the short term, IMHO, is to get as debt-free as possible (especially credit card debt), and maybe see about buying one of those recently (“Unexpectedly!”) foreclosed properties in your neighborhood. Maybe even buy a gold ETF, if you don’t already have actual gold.
I would not be surprised to see the Democrat party attempt to turn us into Venezuela in the lame duck session they have coming, so I’m battening down the hatches right now.
We have enormous credit card debt that we’ve been paying down steadily, but we’re at least a year or so away.
Our house lost considerable value, but I don’t think we’re upside down in it, which I guess is good.
So. This will suck.
I wish we were only a year or so away from being a year or so away.
…from being a year or so away.
I’m going to go away and cry now.
Your best bet in the short term, IMHO, is to get as debt-free as possible (especially credit card debt), and maybe see about buying one of those recently (“Unexpectedly!”) foreclosed properties in your neighborhood.
I think you’re talking about getting rid of short-term debt and locking in a big chunk of long-term debt at today’s rates, in which case I’m totally with you. I’m trying to convince my wife that we need to buy a million-dollar house, since I’m certain that within a few years, our monthly payment on such a deal will be roughly equivalent to a trip to Target.
She’s not buying it, so far. I guess she thinks the Treasury is really going to give the Chinese $4,000,000,000,000 in currency that has actual value.
What can I say? She was an English major.
Squid, I for one am looking forward to paying off my mortgage with the change I find in my wallet. The problem is: How the hell am I going to eat?
I guess she thinks the Treasury is really going to give the Chinese $4,000,000,000,000 in currency that has actual value.
This isn’t my bailiwick by any stretch of the imagination, but isn’t the real danger that the Chinese asset bubble will pop before hyper-inflation/currency devaluation kick in?
If you ask me, the real danger is that fifty million un-marriageable Chinese men are gonna pick up rifles. When that time comes, you definitely don’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity, especially if you have A) a daughter, or B) anything that can be used to buy someone else’s daughter.
But that’s a little outside the realm of currency valuation and inflation.
Hi Squid: You said it better than me.
We had massive overbuilding in GA, especially in the Atlanta metro area. And we’re not talking $150k houses here; we’re talking $500k-plus, especially inside the I-285 perimeter. Now that the assorted exotic mortgage instruments used to purchase these houses have turned pear-shaped, there are lots of really nice houses available for decent prices *and* long term (15, 30 year) rates are really quite low.
If you have the wherewithal, this is the time – as you say – to get rid of short-term debt, and lock in the long-term.
So what you’re telling me is to avoid any investments in Siberia?
Hi Squid: As to the $4,000,000,000,000 bit, I’m putting in rain barrels around my house, planting holly trees around my perimeter, fencing in part of the back yard for chickens, putting in a couple of beehives, installing a generator, learning how to fix small engines, accumulating books/CDs/DVDs for my own for-profit lending library…..
I believe in my heart that America’s “great unwashed” – as Katie Couric calls us – will adapt to and overcome the hardships our credentialed class is about to inflict on us. My goal is to have a range of goods and services I can exchange with others in my neighborhood. I really don’t expect there’ll be too much gunfire – Americans are just way to civilized. I expect, rather, that neighborhoods will form local voluntary associations to deal with problems as they arise.
Taiwan, So. Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Mongolia . . . NoKo looks to be safe though, at least from big C depredations, there being little left to depredate.
I was amused to listen to Hewitt’s third hour yesterday, wherein he interviewed Stanley Kurtz about his new book, Radical in Chief.
They talked about how they both used to balk at using the term “socialist” to describe Obama, because it was so over-the-top.
And then Kurtz goes on to describe the immense, Byzantine network of socialist organizations that permeate Chicago politics and how Obama made his way through them, and how it is just as ridiculous for him to deny that he’s a socialist as it would be for a Tea-Party organizer to deny being conservative.
And Hugh remarked that the network is so complicated that Glenn Beck should do all this on his white board….
…except that Glenn DID diagram it out–MONTHS ago, spending hours and hours talking about all of the organizations and front organizations and money-laundering and wheels within wheels within wheels and it was so complicated and confusing that it was hard not to tune it out completely.
During which time Hugh would hang up on callers that said “Marxist” and “socialist” and call them nutters.
Welcome to the party, Hugh. Hope you brought pizza.
Don’t you worry. Hugh — like a number of others on the “pragmatic” / GOP-cheerleading right — just has to pretend he’s always been there. It’s the American way .
Incidentally, on election night, Hugh and Karl Rove are hosting a victory party event in Colorado.
I’m tempted to go dressed as a witch.
But that’d meant I gave them some of my time. Which is for others to do.
You know who you are…
Hugh sounds like a very ill-mannered person.
Hugh is very pragmatic is all, and pragmatics can’t stand it when others know the truth before they do.
When he stopped giving away podcasts, I stopped listening. Other than his interviews with Mark Stein and Lileks, I don’t miss him all that much.
I guess that would be “pragmatists.”
For whom will Hugh Hewitt be a low-rent fanboi in 2012?
yea like when he refers to people as “nutters” when they knew O! was a commie all before he did
here
mittens romney ’cause all he needs to do is update his 2008 book
by 2012 Romney will have spent the entirety of the preceding six years of his life pining for the presidency like a pathetic little bitch
The party of no has a whole bunch of internal no-saying to do one of these days pretty soon. (No Mitt. No Huck. No Ron. No Tim. No Chris. And so on.) They can practice on Obama for awhile to get better at it.
And so on indeed.
That’s as restrained as I’ve seen you in a while, hf.
Didn’t see any need to belabor the obvious I guess. But maybe should have ended on a Yes John note? heh
where’s mitch
John? Am I dense, or what?
You mean Thune?
oh hells no Bob. It’s a Yes John (and you too Regis) sort of yes John.
by 2012 Romney will have spent the entirety of the preceding six years of his life pining for the presidency like a pathetic little bitch
Pity then that it’s his turn.
Ah, Bolton…I’d back him, after only really hearing his views on foreign policy! Because my instinct tells me he’s my kind of guy; even if he might not be the most electable.
God forbid it’s Romney’s “turn” Ernst. I’m thinkin’ the usual suspects won’t do in 2012.
If Christie succeeds in New Jersey, he could be an unstoppable force.
For good or ill? That is the question.
No Chris.
I’m thinkin’ the usual suspects won’t do in 2012.
I”m thinking that’s the reason why a good chunk of the post-mortem will be on why Obama’s prospects for re-election remain undiminished (witness the LAT blog item Jeff linked yesterday).
Fortunately it was even further along in the Presidential cycle, back in the fall of ’91, that SNL (when it was still funny) ran a hilarious sketch of a debate between Gore, (represented by Tipper) Cuomo, and Jackson on why they were not the one who should be nominated for the expected obliteration at the hands of the unstoppable, (highest approval rating evah!) twice-victorious CinC, George H. W. Bush
But he’s an unstoppable force!!!
The Democrats have their list set up already.
I’d say they, the dems, are going to push for Huck like they did McCain in 2008.
John Bolton’s mustache will run, if only to get his idea out there to the people. John will provide the translation and transportation.
Fear the ‘stache man, fear the ‘stache.
Heh, sounds like the Dems are confident that no-one can Swiftboat Obama. Makes sense, since he never served and Ret. Gen. Stanley McC won’t be talkin’.
I personally don’t think Christie will run; he’s said as much.
Was that what you were alluding to sdferr, or have you joined with those who share the opinion that Christie isn’t a true conservative?
Just curious.
Darrell Issa might do more than file a few FOI requests.
I think Gov. Chris is plenty conservative, so far as I can see him Bob, but lacks the first quality I’d demand of a CinC (which is not to say he can’t acquire that and other qualities through diligent study, just that he hasn’t demonstrated them so far. Indeed, I found his take on the Murderzone Mosque nothing short of alarmingly naive in a potential Chief strategist and decision maker.)
for hf palin 2012
Fair enough, Christie isn’t running anyway. I just wondered if you were of like mind with the “Christie is a stealth RINO! for campaigning with Mike Castle” camp. I’ve seen that in the comments on more than one site, and just don’t get it myself. Maybe it’s an outgrowth of the same discomfort you had with his non-committal GZM non-stance.
I’m thinkin’ he’s going for a second term as NJ governor anyway, to straighten that place out.
By the way, I like the “murderzon mosque”, turn of the phrase; nice and pithy…
I think a ticket consisting of John Bolton and Sara Palin (not necessarily in that order) would have to proper combination of Foreign Policy Chops, Domestic populism, gravitas and sex appeal.
Palin/Bolton is a monstrous force!
“the proper combo”
A formidal duo indeed Ernst.
I know that ticket would be largely popular here, but might suggest that they both start in a popular opinion hole vis-a-vis the negative narrative the media has already constructed.
Nothing that an agressive campaign couldn’t overcome though, especially if they talked over the MFM, a la Reagan.
While waiting for the Caps to score on Backstrom’s Wild (hi Jose!) by and large I’m content to simply say No Chris (as not fit) and leave it at that. No need to run him down nor build him up. After all, it’s a rare f’in job.
By the way, a bit OT; http://tiny.cc/nxlc5
But still shocking none the less.
Fair enough.
4 sog ain’t gonna get it done
Talk over the media? Talk?!? Sara Palin doesn’t need to talk over the media.
Let’s make George Voinovich cry…again.
Interesting that you point that out Mike, Bolton, Kristol, Hanson and Morris, were the ‘Four Muskateers who brought her to the attention of the GOP, in the summer after her first term as Governor, Among the things they share in common is the disdain of Lisa Getmenetsky, who voted
not to recommend him to the Full Senate, and ultimately Bush had to recess appoint him.
Yes John (as fit).
Has wide and bountiful experience in many walks of life (lawyer, strategist, diplomat, masterful bureaucratic infighter, writer, commentator, etc.). Understands how to think like an economist. Talk, he can do. Thinks well too. Knows Washington inside and out. Loves his country and his fellows and wants the best for both. Knows how to treat allies well and enemies ill. Gets that the rat’s nest at Foggy B. needs the flamethrower treatment. Won’t be surprised by anything the Agency children can think to cook up.
He should choose his own Veep. Let him surprise us.
He was an aide to Jesse Helms, his envoy to the arms control camp, kind of like Leonidas messenger to Xerxes, as was Otto Reich, who was the bete noire of Dodd, Kerry, and all the other Senate Sandalistas. I assume he would be fairly classical liberal in terms of domestic policy
Didn’t know that, winston. That past association and the fact that they share the same enemies is an encouraging sign.