I like the analogy, but, I think we’re seeing parallels of a teenager who gets his or her first credit card from parents. If the parents won’t bail the teenager out after an irresponsible spending binge or threaten to take the card away, the teenager is likely to throw a tantrum,and the tantrum will result in extreme statements and idle threats like “I hate you”, “You don’t love me”, and “I’m going to die”,

The left has been over-spending our money for as long as I can remember, and the Congress, the market, and the Fed have been bailing them out. It’s time to take the credit card away, and it won’t be pretty for a while.

For Obama, I see him as a reckless teenager who got his first drivers license, his first credit card, and achieved the drinking age all in the same day. We’re witnessing a massive bender in all dimensions.

I have a slightly different analogy that further ties into the big government more broadly. I suggested to my wife that the POTUS and D’s approach to the deficit was like an addict who wastes all of his paycheck on his drug addiction to the point that his income can’t keep up with his use, and the solution of his parents and friends is for him to GET ANOTHER JOB so he can afford his habit!

I have a slightly different analogy that further ties into the big government more broadly. I suggested to my wife that the POTUS and D’s approach to the deficit was like an addict who wastes all of his paycheck on his drug addiction to the point that his income can’t keep up with his use, and the solution of his parents and friends is for him to GET ANOTHER JOB so he can afford his habit!

as long as it enables their addiction.

Let the left call us anything they like. This is a citizen-led intervention to stop the spending addiction of our government.

Maybe we should start calling ourselves “Spendaholics Anonymous”.

by attributing the economic policies of recent years to his theories. Remember all of Keynes assumptions rested on the basis that government would run balanced budgets with very little debt during non-contractionary periods. Thus, when demand collapsed (such as happened during the credit crisis) government could step in and stop a negative feedback loop (and because they normally were operating under balanced conditions, the extra spending wouldn’t get hampered by the diminishing returns that we encounter today with all of our constant deficit spending (ie we get much less bang for each additional dollar spent).

Whatever merit Keynesian models have, it seems to me, their best chance to work is in an economy that produces most of its consumer goods. I think that those $400-$500 tax rebates might have a stimulating effect if all the small ticket consumer goods were manufactured here. With 90% of it made offshore how can it? We only stimulate China.

Large scale government stimulus might stimulate if the transaction is complex enough; meaning millions of component parts such as in a bomber or aircraft carrier. In my mind, most public works projects while very expensive, are not complex enough to stimulate in any kind of worthwhile amount.

The biggest stimulus we could probably unleash now is Reverse Keynesian Economics. The 1000# gorilla in the room in government. Reduce its drain on the economy.

Simple business economics- government is overhead. Has any business ever been saved by always increasing the overhead and never increasing production or sales. Overhead staff and costs are a necessary evil to a smooth and efficient running business. They are in support of the means of production not the reason for production. Same with government it is a drain, necessary for function but must be kept at a minimum.

oh, Barack Obama are fond of expressing envy of how “efficient” the Chicoms are at “Getting Things Done”: A mandate is issued and the thing mandated happens. Boom.

A few days ago I was listening to a report about a Chinese citizen who was ranting about how the Chinese Government had pushed their Bullet Train down their throats and how one of the bureaucrats had stolen “two billion” from the program and put it into a foreign bank, out of the reach of the Chinese Government. The reporter telling the story did a quick conversion calculation and said “Wow. That is about $30 million U.S.” The Chinese citizen corrected him “NO. It was $2 Billion U.S. that he stole!”

So much for the efficiency of government by fiat and force of arms.

My point, made many MANY times since the election in November is this: Without the messiness of our republican form of government, there would have been no debate over the debt limit, we would still have gotten the downgrade but we would have even more massive debt piled onto that which even our grandchildren will have difficulty repaying unless the currency is inflated to the point where it is nearly worthless.

In MY lifetime, the value of the dollar as measured in the cost of a home or a car has fallen by about 80%. By the time Obama leaves office, we will be fortunate indeed if the value of the dollar has not declined another 50%.

Steve Wynn, though too late in coming to his epiphany, was exactly right: Obama is the worst thing to happen to the U.S. Economy in HIS lifetime, and mine as well.

I don’t think the majority of the Federal budget qualifies as spending in the traditional or even Keynesian sense. Things like Food Stamps, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, even Social Security are just transfers of one set of people’s money to another and it is ludicrous for Barack and Princess Pelosi to continuously go out there and claim that these are great things for the macro economy. The problem with a “jobs program’ is that it is always proposed in addition to all this stupid stuff we already do. You want to build roads and bridges? Let’s take the money allocated for the unemployed. Or the people that cannot pay for their own food. Or that don’t have health insurance. That actually might make some sense.

I know this will rile up the “There you go killing grandma crowd” but the fact is that we invest the majority of our money in our least productive citizens: the elderly and the long term unemployed.