Inflation.

The only thing worse than the Government raising taxes so you have less money in your paycheck is bringing your paycheck home and it buys less food and other staples.

And, what is the major cause of inflation?

Wikipedia says:

Economists generally agree that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth of the money supply.

This is exactly what we are doing right now. Printing billions of dollars to bail out everybody and his brother. Spending billions we don’t have will not help the economy over time. This policy is critically bad and the administration knows it.

So, why are they doing this?

• Is it possible that they know exactly what will happen in a couple years. People won’t be able to afford living, so it will be necessary to expand government programs?

I don’t know. I’m not really big on conspiracy theories, but I can think of no other reason why smart people would do this. They know what the results of their policies will do.

Seems like we all need demons.

• The Clinton administration demonized Newt Gingrich and HMOs
• The Bush administration demonized Saddam Hussain
• The Obama administration is demonizing Rush Limbaugh and AIG

This is stupid. It’s like the shell game at the carnival. You watch and watch intently and never figure out where the pea is. When, all the time the problem is the shell.

All the hoopla about the $165 million paid to AIG employees is not the issue. The $680 BILLION we paid them is the issue. We sent them this money with no strings attached. The budget Congress passed included the “Dodd Amendment” that said bonuses that were scheduled prior to Feb 2009 could be paid. These bonuses were scheduled prior to that date, they just were not paid.  The Treasury Secretary and the President knew prior to the Saturday March 21st AIG announcement about the bonuses. This was not a secret plan hatched by AIG

Why then did the administration send it’s people to all the Sunday morning talk shows expressing their outrage? They knew about the bonuses, but they made it look like they were surprised. Complete BS.

Now for the remedy…

Isn’t there something in the Constitution called the “Bill of Attainder”?

The Constitution of the United States, Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 provides that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law will be passed.”

Wikipedia says:

A bill of attainder (also known as an act or writ of attainder) is an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. Bills of attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution.

I’m not a lawyer like most of the Senators and Congressmen and women, but doesn’t this mean that you cannot single out a single person or a group and pass a law to punish them?

I’m just saying, it doesn’t sound right. I don’t like the idea of paying people either, but it was up to Congress to write this into the rules before they gave away our money.

Up to one trillion dollars!
That’s what it’s going to cost us to get out of this economic mess??? Why is there to outrage from the tax payers, from congress, from everyone?

Someone needs to ask “WHY?”

• Why did we get to this point?
• Why was there no Congressional oversight?
• Why were the mortgage companies and lenders giving so many bad loans?
• Why don’t they really know how much real estate is at risk?
• Why did the former heads of Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac get removed with million dollar golden handshakes?
• Why are Chris Dodd and Barack Obama the two highest recipients of political donations from Fanny and Freddy?
• Why is Fanny and Freddy even giving political donations to the same people who oversee them? (In the business world, that is called bribery)
• Why are the same oversight committees in Congress planning to oversee the new plan? Haven’t they proven they are not up to the job?
• Why is the Justice Dept not looking into the whole mess?
• Why was President Bush ignored when he tried twelve times to put more controls and oversight on Fanny and Freddy?
• Why was Senator McCain ignored when he proposed a revamp of Fanny and Freddy back in 2005?

The fact is, if this was a Republican controlled congress, the Democrats would be screaming for hearings and calling for heads when it comes to the oversight of this industry. But, because they were in charge and did not heed any callings from the President and Senator McCain, the last thing they want are hearings.

We should not let them get off the hook this easy. They will be in controll of Congress for the forseeable future. We just can’t re-arrange the deck chairs on this sinking ship.

Watching the news last night… the headlines were inflation was up, unemployment was up, house prices are down,  the sky was falling.

Then, I switched to Larry Kudlow’s CNBC show “Kudlow and Company” a half the guests (he always has a ton of guests) were saying it’s just not that bad.

His question was “are we better off today than we were 4 years ago?” It sure doesn’t feel it, I would have said and emphatic no. But lisenting to his guests the stats don’t necessarily agree.

• The Dow is higher than it was 4 years ago
• The median house price is higher than it was 4 years ago
• Unemployment is only slightly higher than it was 4 years ago
• Average household earnings is higher than it was 4 years ago
• and there was more and more… you get the point.

I understand, we are on a downturn (some say recession) from where we were a couple years ago. Gas prices have hit everyone. But, if it wasn’t for the price of oil right now, the whole economy would be looking pretty good.

The take away from this is, you just don’t need to participate in the slow economy. Sure, if you are laid off you are in a different position. If you got one of those teaser mortgages when housing prices were up a couple years ago and your payment just hit the roof, you are in a difficult situation. But for most of us, it’s just not that bad.