Archive for category Welfare
Even Libs Learn The Hidden Cost of Obamacare
Posted by Tom in Business, Democrats, Nationalized Health Care, Welfare on August 26, 2010
Surprise, surprise, colleges want a waiver from Obamacare. If asked to name a liberal bastion as left as the Fourth Estate it would be the universities. Obama is their product, their teacher, their community organizer and their ordained leader. So why are they chafing from his most progressive achievement, Obamacare? Well according to an editorial piece in today’s WSJ, the law “could make it impossible for colleges and universities to continue to offer student health plans.” That’s how the American Council on Education and a dozen other higher-ed lobbies put it in a recent letter to the Obama Administration, warning that the insurance coverage they offer may get junked by ObamaCare’s decrees.” Seems that the bureaucratic “one size fits all” plan will cost too much for the 4.5 to 5.5 million students annually enrolled in college plans. Logical indeed, when you consider the average age of the students.
Of course, we the unwashed masses who will be taxed to pay for this unaffordable welfare program know the truth. EVERYONE WILL PAY….THE POOR STUDENTS…AND THE EMPLOYEES. That’s right, you won’t need to earn over $250,000 to suffer under this monstrosity. The people who can least afford it will be penalized most.
This from my friend Joe Morabito to his U.S. employees: “Hello All: We just sat through a horrible presentation done by our insurance broker related to the impact of Obama’s HealthScare Plan on our medical and other benefits. Let me be clear, for any employee who believes this is a “scare tactic”, effective next January, 2011; all will be paying significantly more for medical and other benefits because Paragon cannot absorb the cost increases that are coming as a result of ObamaCare. Further, as we go into 2012 – 2014, other elements of the plan kick in that will impact our entire benefits program so big changes will be coming related to how and from whom you buy your health insurance. If ObamaCare is not repealed first, we may, or may not, have a company sponsored plan based on what is most advantageous to both Paragon and our employees. What I know for sure is that Paragon cannot afford the insurance premium increases and additional administrative costs that are coming as a result of Obama’s HealthScare Plan. We will have to consider all alternatives.”
“As you go to the polls next November, I suggest you vote for candidates that advocate REPEAL of Obama’s HealthScare Plan, which will be a disaster for Paragon and our employees. Clearly, it is impossible to insure 30 million uninsured, (plus potentially 12 million illegal aliens) without someone paying the bill. In this case, those who already have health insurance and senior citizens will be paying that bill. Elections have consequences. JM”
The hidden tax that is Obamacare is only starting to be unmasked. There will be more “surprises!” None of them will be good.
As Joe says, “elections have consequences!”
If Greece is Europe’s Achilles Heel…and Europe Falls….
Posted by Tom in Economics, Entitlements, Europe, National Character, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, Social Security, Welfare on April 28, 2010
I’ve seen items from John Muldin and George Friedman this week analyzing the Greek debt/deficit debacle. Greece is one of the PIIGS of Club Med, the European nations who cannot afford their welfare systems. Greece cannot borrow to fund its largess; its credit rating is junk according to S&P. It is seeking European and IMF bailout aid, the amount of which is dependent on uncovering the accounting tricks it has heretofore used. Normally the IMF would use devaluation as one tool but that is not possible here because of the Euro. Greece will fail.
Sovereign debt problems are forecast for Spain and Portugal also, as they have suffered downgrades. Causes of their problems are similar but the significance is greater as the Spanish economy along with Italy which may follow soon is simply too big for Germany to bail out. Fiscal contagion is a serious problem.
So, let a few PIIGS fail, so what? Problem here is with the European banks. They hold the PIIGS bonds. Without regard to those underwater assets, the European banks were already in trouble since they did not clean up their bad real estate related assets. Think the Japanese banks of the 1990s. Friedman says the even at the peak of the U.S. subprime crisis European banks were in worse shape. How much worse shape now with the PIIGS crisis?
A Euro devaluation? A break-up of the European Union? At least, a significant period of de-stability for a major consumer in the world economy and a significant producer in that economy. Germany will survive in better shape than the rest. The PIIGS are likely to exist outside a re-formed European Union.
Add the fact that the U.S. is not the consumer that it once was. Thankfully, it is de-leveraging more, saving more, and consuming less. It hopes to expand its exports but who will pay the desired price? China? The rest of Asia? Thus the world economy will really be upside-down with a lot of areas trying to be producers but none trying to be consumers!
But the real concern is that the U.S. is a budding Greece bubble waiting to pop. In ten short years 93 cents of every dollar of government revenue will go to pay entitlements and interest on the debt. Obama has put us on the path to become a Europe on steroids just when Europe is exploding! Before Obama took office our entitlements thanks to Roosevelt, Johnson and Bush were on an unsustainable path. Rather than correct this Obama added another major entitlement, Obamacare, which will bankrupt our nation.
Several questions present themselves in this scenario: What of defense? Iran, North Korea, Russia and China are all real and potential problems. We spend so much on butter that we con’t afford guns. What of our assets and businesses? In a declining economy how will be work, live and invest? And, from a personal survival standpoint if the economy declines toward the subsistance level, is it guns and gold to survive? I know my farming skills aren’t all that good!
But there is hope if we recognize that big government must be drastically cut, public employee pensions and compensation reduced to the level of private compensation, entitlements including social security, medicare and medicaid cut in half, and Obamacare repealed and replaced by consumer-based, non-tax advantaged health care. We have a very short window in which to accomplish this dramatic turnaround. Let’s educate the voters and elect people who will get the job done.
Philosophical Ramblings
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Taxation, Welfare on April 22, 2010
Saw one of my favorite Docs today and told him of the dismal projections for our country discussed at this week’s Reno Hayek Symposium Dinner, the current and future deficits, the debt, the unfunded liabilities and on top of all this the Omamacare sludge hammer. We both pondered the “no way out-no apparent solution” future. The concern here is for our children and grandchildren. And, its not that they can’t be better, be more independent than we, but that we are saddling them with unimaginable debt burdens so bad that they can’t be overcome no matter how strong they are.
We then discussed the untenable tax burden necessary to barely maintain but not reduce these entitlements, their corresponding debt and merely the interest cost necessary to maintain both. This is not a tax the rich issue, the rich will no longer be here or anywhere for that matter. This is a gigantic burden on the middle class; the less-than-middle class pay no taxes, and in fact have payments going to them. The anticipated 20% VAT tax atop the increased income tax and estate tax will not come close to solving the problem. In fact this tax on consumption will merely accelerate the downward spiral in our consumption based economy. This because consumers will be further forced to hunker down, down to a subsistance existence.
We pondered the all-but-impossible solution of reducing entitlements arguing its necessity but also its political impossibility. Then we broached the real issue, equality.
This, discussed initially in medical services. Should we all be entitled to the best, the Mayo clinic, the latest technology? Or should only those who can afford the best be able to buy it? In Europe it is the entitlement scenario, but the best becomes the non-best. This because the best requires capital investment at risk for long duration and problematic results. My Doc pointed out that med-tech investment is down! In Central America medical treatment and services are pretty good and the tech used is state-of-art but only for those who can afford it. The lower classes are relagated to a lower level of care above first aid but not the best available.
What as a society do we want for our society? What as a society can we afford for our society?
I think it gets down to two issues: the proper role of government and the moral responsibility of the individual. Government must defend our shores first and formost. It must enforce criminal laws protecting person and property. It must maintain a system of civil justice resolving disputes between citizens. And given our republic structure it must resolve issues between states. Finally it must provide for its continuance, succession and amendment. Our founding fathers pretty well set this out initially in the Declaration of Independence and later in the Constitution.
I think the proper role of the individual is to provide for himself and his family; that is food, shelter, education and protection. Beyond that the individual must be a contributing member of society helping his fellow man in need. This frequently through synagogue, temple or church and also through voluntary community societies. The individual must also be a responsible citizen, voting, volunteering, and participating in government offices when elected or appointed.
What of equality? What of entitlements? We are not “all created equal” nor has history shown us to be “endowed by our Creator, with certain unalienable rights” of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The closest we come is to expect “equality of opportunity” despite our limitations. “Equality of result” is never attainable. Nor are we “entitled” to be equal. We struggle to do our best for ourselves, our families and our society. But we are not entitled to nor should we be guaranteed the same as everyone else.
This realization gives us the opportunity to help others, to be charitable, to do moral good. Including providing charitable hospitals and medical care, to get back to the earlier example. Here the government has no role; it is the exclusive role of the individual with other individuals alongside.
So, to prevent or at least mitigate the greatest intergenerational immorality in our history, we must limit entitlements, reducing and means restricting social security, medicare, medicaid and Obamacare. Keep in mind our grandkids have no voice, they are innocent of our current theft of their future. Our parents, the greatest generation, left us a better future but perhaps one too soft. Will we do worse by our children and grandchildren?
Wall Street + Democrats = Crony Capitalism at Taxpayer Expense
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Democrats, Economics, Financial Policy, Government Regulation, Unions, Wall Street, Welfare on April 18, 2010
In 2008 to elect, inter alia, Barack Hussein Obama and other Democrats, Goldman Sachs contributed $4,463,788; that’s 75% of its total contributions to the Democrats, the party of Wall Street. Also the party of public employee unions and unions in general. Also the party of trial lawyers. These three groups together with sundry “rent seeking” corporations like GE have cost the U.S. economy, particularly the taxpayers, billions of dollars. A little money buys a lot from Democratic whores like financial perks to Goldman from selling structured phony investments, more government employment union dues for union bosses, and contingency fees for trial lawyers from phony lawsuits. The economic cost hurts us in inflated deficits and debt, higher capital costs and exploding taxes and higher medical costs from inflated malpractice insurance rates.
The Wall Street payoff continues with Sen. Dodd’s financial ”reform” package. It is a bailout at taxpayer expense waiting to happen. With Obama and Democratic lips moving in support of the Dodd security blanket for Wall Street you know the denial of future bailouts is bold face lie. What Dodd has done is to institutionalize future bailouts garnering more power to the federal (DEMOCRATIC) regulators. Just another step in big government. Just another money getting lever for the Democrats. Just another vote buying lever for the leftists.
The problem is twofold and all bad: One: More control of the economy, main street as well as big business, because the general economy works with the financial lubricants provided by the financial industry. More control means bigger government. More control means more opportunity for rent seeking behavior and less competition. More control means more incumbent power.
(Definition: rent seeking behavior is the business behavior to obtain unfair competitive advantage from government regulation, subsidy, or taxation against competition without such advantage. Examples: subsidy of environmental devices, ethanol, and government bond agency.)
Two: Just as bad from an overall economic perspective is the moral hazard enshrined in the Dodd bill. Moral hazard is the real or imagined sense that there is a safety net protecting business from adverse risk. If I feel the government will always be there to bail me out, I will take more and more undue risk to gain greater profit because I have nothing or little to lose in the process. This is a guaranteed bubble generator and when the s__t hits the fan, the necessary cleanup will fall on the taxpayer. Fannie and Freddie are perfect examples of this phenomena.
As a recent WSJ editorial notes the Dodd bill is improving draft by draft at a glacial pace so we still have hope. But the mindset of the Obama control freaks is opposite the welfare of the American people.The solution is to separate high risk businesses like proprietary trading from government guarantee businesses like bank deposits or alternatively, eliminate all government business guarantees. We must have the freedom to fail as well as succeed without government interference in either case. That is what makes us competitive and what has made us great.
Welfare be it individual or corporate only makes us dependent in a world that will not tolerate dependence. It puts us near the end of the road to serfdom.
Tax Season–Players Suckers–Spectators Vote
Mark Steyn’s NRO post today, Tax Season, analogizes tax season to baseball season which, for most of us, is a spectator sport. Yeah, that’s right, we pay at the gate and again for the peanuts and crackerjacks while the guys on the field play and get paid. That’s the opposite of Mark’s analogy. During tax season, the taxpaying-players pay, and the spectators in the stands get in free and enjoy free peanuts and crackerjacks. No wonder they don’t care if they “never get back. Cause it’s root, root for the” Obama team. “If they don’t win, it’s a shame.” Here my choice of Jack Norworth’s 1908 baseball standard as an analogy breaks down. It’s highly improbable, almost impossible that “they” won’t win. Why? Cause like baseball now, the spectators will shortly outnumber the taxpaying players. Thus, the point of Mark’s article.
“And yet for an increasing number of Americans, tax season is like baseball season: It’s a spectator sport. According to the Tax Policy Center, for the year 2009, 47 percent of U.S. households will pay no federal income tax. Obviously, many of them pay other kinds of taxes — state tax, property tax, cigarette tax. But at a time of massive increases in federal spending, half the country is effectively making no contribution to it, whether it’s national defense or vital stimulus funding to pump monkeys in North Carolina full of cocaine (true, seriously, but don’t ask me why). Half a decade back, it was just under 40 percent who paid no federal income tax; now it’s just under 50 percent. By 2012, America could be holding the first federal election in which a majority of the population will be able to vote themselves more government lollipops paid for by the ever shrinking minority of the population still dumb enough to be net contributors to the federal treasury. In less than a quarter-millennium, the American Revolution will have evolved from “No taxation without representation” to representation without taxation. We have bigger government, bigger bureaucracy, bigger spending, bigger deficits, and bigger debt, and yet an ever smaller proportion of citizens paying for it.”
“The top 5 percent of taxpayers contribute 60 percent of revenue. The top 10 percent provide 75 percent. Another 40-odd percent make up the rest. And half are exempt. This isn’t redistribution — a “leveling” to address the “maldistribution” of income, as Sen. Max Baucus (D., Kleptocristan) put it the other day. It isn’t even “spreading the wealth around,” as then-senator Obama put it in an unfortunate off-the-prompter moment during the 2008 campaign. Rather, it’s an assault on the moral legitimacy of the system. If you accept the principle of a tax on income, it might seem reasonable to exclude the very poor from having to contribute to it. But in no meaningful sense of the term can half the country be considered “poor.”
Two Points: One, if you don’t pay for it, you don’t appreciate it. The dole, the negative tax, the entitlements exacerbate an entitlement/dependency mentality that only wants and demands more and really doesn’t appreciate what is given with any contribution!
Two: The percentage of taxpayers supporting the system will decline and decline more, until it wakes up and leaves. We have reached the “tipping point” in social security with more going out than coming in. Medicare is worse, as is Medicaid, the states unfunded liabilities and government debt, deficits and unfunded liabilities follow in order.
That the idiot we have as president, Obama, with his leftist minions, Pelosi and Reid, and the Democratic congress have added Obamacare as another gigantic entitlement to this unsustainable pyramid is immoral now and all the more so later. Obama has proven himself anti-life as that term applies to live birth abortions; he has now done so as to our precious grandchildren now living.
The sad truth that Mark Steyn makes is that there are going to be more voters voting themselves free “peanuts and crackerjacks” than taxpayers paying for everything!
Mark Steyn Is Not a Hangover Cure!
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, Financial Policy, Nationalized Health Care, Statism, Taxation, Welfare on March 26, 2010
How bad can Obamacare get? What’s its effect on the U.S. economy? Mark Steyn’s NRO post, Obamacare Dystopia, gives us a slight indication: When the Bush Medicare Drug plan was added there were many retiree plans that included drug benefits. To incentivize those companies from dumping their retirees on the new Medicare drug plan, “Congress gave them a modest tax break equivalent to 28 percent of the const of the plan.” That has changed.
“Ask yourself this: If you impose a sudden 35 percent tax on something, are you likely to get as much of it? Go on, take a wild guess. On the day President Obama signed Obamacare into law, Verizon sent an e-mail to all its employees warning that the company’s costs “will increase in the short term.” And in the medium term? Well, U.S. corporations that are able to do so will get out of their prescription-drug plans and toss their retirees onto the Medicare pile. So far just three companies — Deere, Caterpillar, and ValeroEnergy— have calculated that the loss of the deduction will add a combined $265 million to their costs. There are an additional 3,500 businesses presently claiming the break. The cost to taxpayers of that 28 percent benefit is about $665 per person. The cost to taxpayers of equivalent Medicare coverage is about $1,200 per person. So we’re roughly doubling the cost of covering an estimated 5 million retirees.”
This is all so silly when you think that the tax favored employee medical insurance system has no reasonable basis in economics. It is compensation and should be treated as such, but isn’t under our tax law. And this is the source of our problems. But rather than acknowledge this and put consumers in control, Obama has chosen to put government in control regardless of the costs. Dependency is created.
Mark goes onto treat the facts that we can’t afford Obamacare given our current near bankrupt status with Democratic welfare unfunded liabilities and that this will inevitably bring a VAT tax added to our current tax structure that will doom us to peon status. He then looks ahead:
“All of the above is pretty much a safe bet. What about the imponderables? Even Obama hasn’t yet asked the CBO to cost out, say, what happens to the price of oil when the Straits of Hormuz are under a de facto Iranian nuclear umbrella — as they will be soon, because the former global hyperpower, which now gets mad over a few hundred housing units in Jerusalem, is blasé and insouciant about the wilder shores of the mullahs’ dreams. Or suppose, as seems to be happening, the Sino-Iranian alliance were to result in a reorientation of global oil relationships, or the Russo-Iranian friendship bloomed to such a degree that, between Moscow’s control of Europe’s gas supply and Teheran’s new role as Middle Eastern superpower, the economy of the entire developed world becomes dependent on an alliance profoundly hostile to it.”
Obama has set his course to ruin this nation. Pray that he fails!
Party’s Over……….Hangover Starts
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, Social Security, Welfare on March 25, 2010
As Pelosi said, “we have to pass this bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Well, it’s still early, but we’re starting to find out. And it looks ugly. Publicly traded companies can’t hide, lie, and obfuscate bad news like the Democrats do, so Caterpillar announced a medical cost increase of at least $100 million in the first year alone. Deere and Verizon followed warning of a cost increase as a result of Obamacare. You can bet these announcements will be followed by more like them with consequent impact on employees and shareholders alike. See: WSJ’s Obamacare Day One, and Deer, Caterpillar: Health-Care Law to Raise Expenses.
But it’s not only public companies that will be effected. I spoke with a small Reno business owner about Obamacare impacts. This employer now provides healthcare to its 25 employees at significant expense and significant employee contribution. Under the new law, it will drop healthcare coverage and the employees can under the government insurance exchange obtain healthcare at approximately the same costs as they are contributing to the current group policy. Business profits improve, employees have the same expenses with the government subsidized insurance. Only the taxpayers lose.
Wait, that’s a gross understatement. Not only do the taxpayers lose now, but their children and grandchildren are saddled with staggering public debt and unfunded liabilities from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. And now Obama has added a new, gigantic unfunded liability.
Thanks Nancy, we’re now starting to find out what’s in it!
Agenda of Spreading Dependency
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Democrats, Statism, Welfare on March 22, 2010
George Will’s RCP post today, A Victory for Obama’s Agenda of Spreading Dependency, focuses on the missed opportunity for health-care reform, the grime of the Democrats’ vote buying, and the ultimate desire for complete control through dependency creation. Some excerpts:
On missed opportunity for real reform: “Health care will not be seriously revisited for at least a generation, so the system’s costliest defect — untaxed employer-provided insurance, which entangles a high-inflation commodity, health care, with the wage system — remains. Obama could not challenge this without adopting measures — e.g., tax credits for individuals, enabling them to shop for their own insurance — that empower individuals and therefore conflict with his party’s agenda of spreading dependency.”
On the vote buying:”Because logrolling is how legislative coalitions are cobbled together in a continental nation, the auction by which reluctant House Democrats were purchased has been disillusioning only to sentimentalists with illusions about society’s stock of disinterestedness. Besides, some of the transactions were almost gorgeous: Government policy having helped make water scarce in California’s Central Valley, the party of expanding government secured two votes by increasing rations of the scarcity. Thus did one dependency lubricate legislation that establishes others.”
On dependency: “Promoting dependency is the Democratic Party’s vocation. It knows that almost all entitlements are forever, and those that are not — e.g., the lifetime eligibility for welfare, repealed in 1996 — are not for the middle class. Democrats believe, plausibly, that middle-class entitlements are instantly addictive and, because there is no known detoxification, that class, when facing future choices between trimming entitlements or increasing taxes, will choose the latter. The taxes will disproportionately burden high earners, thereby tightening the noose of society’s dependency on government for investments and job-creation.”
Obama’s course accelerates our journey on the road to serfdom. Sad that none of these socialists think of their children and grandchildren. Ultimately, they are really a selfish lot. And Obama is truly a post-American president, denying all the attributes that make us a great nation. Will’s excellent article is worth the read.
Add Costs, Regulation, & Government…Subtract a Bright Future
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Democrats, Nationalized Health Care, Social Security, Welfare on March 21, 2010
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the CBO, penned an op-ed in the NYT yesterday, The Real Arithmetic of Health Care Reform, in which he points out that the CBO’s ten-year cost estimate of $950 billion and deficit reduction of $138 billion is an estimate of fantasy. The CBO can’t comment on the fictions in the bill before it. The current Obamacare bill will actually produce a deficit increase of $562 for the same reasons outlined by Paul Ryan. He uses words like, gimmicks, budgetary games, front loading costs without benefits, leaving costs out entirely, manipulates, slight of hand, unrealistic, and stolen.
“The stakes could not be higher. As documented in another recent budget office analysis, the federal deficit is already expected to exceed at least $700 billion every year over the next decade, doubling the national debt to more than $20 trillion. By 2020, the federal deficit — the amount the government must borrow to meet its expenses — is projected to be $1.2 trillion, $900 billion of which represents interest on previous debt……..The health care legislation would only increase this crushing debt. It is a clear indication that Congress does not realize the urgency of putting America’s fiscal house in order.”
Holtz-Eakkin’s piece largely confirms a post by Cato’s Michael Tanner in NRO this weekend, Predictions; Reno Hayek members will recall that Michael spoke to us last year about this time. He reasonably prognosticates: One, that the bill will cost more than advertised not only because of the gimmicks and deceit but because all major government programs do. In ‘65 Medicare was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990; it came in seven times higher at $67 billion. Two, insurance premiums will increase. The bill will do nothing to lessen the 200% increase, by CBO estimate. Three, quality of care will be worse. The bill will accelerate doctor retirements at the same time it adds patients to the system.
Scarier yet, four, the leftist will keep pushing for more. To quote Pelosi, “once we kick through this door, there’ll be more legislation to follow,” in other words, this is the first step to single payer government healthcare. Five, Republicans won’t try to repeal it because they won’t be able to get the required veto proof majority in both houses or the presidency plus the filibuster proof Senate.
At a time when serious attention should be devoted to getting our fiscal house in order, by at a minimum avoiding the demographically certain failure of medicare, social security and medicaid, Obama has loaded the country’s future generation with a new middle class entitlement destine for the same future as those welfare programs. It will beget unsustainable debt, burdensome regulation, and big government growth and taxation which will detract from our future private economy. It is the greatest intergenerational immorality in modern times.
Our Creditors Are Nervous……..Do You Blame Them?
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Deficit, Financial Policy, Foreign Trade, Monetary Policy, National Debt, Nationalized Health Care, Social Security, Statism, Welfare on March 15, 2010
Bloomberg reports today that China and Japan reduced their holdings of U.S. Treasuries again in January. In fact, China has been a net seller for three straight months.
“Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao this week sought assurances that the U.S. will protect the value of China’s dollar assets. At a press conference in Beijing marking the end of China’s annual parliamentary meetings two days ago, Wen said dollar volatility is a “big” concern and “I’m still worried” about China’s U.S. currency holdings.”
“Wen urged U.S. officials to “take concrete steps to reassure investors” about the safety of dollar assets, repeating concerns that he expressed a year ago, sparked by a growing U.S. fiscal deficit.”
“China’s share of U.S. bills, notes and bonds in January amounted to 24 percent of the total $3.7 trillion in Treasuries owned by investors abroad, up from 19 percent three years ago, according to Treasury data.”
With record Obama deficits, unsustainable national debt, and gigantic unfunded liabilities from welfare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security inflation is a real threat. Add to that the demographically certain bankruptcy of these programs, the worry becomes all the more acute. Instead of a sober attempt to remedy the situation we have a socialist president on a hell-bent-for-leather campaign to add to welfare with Obamacare’s takeover of 16% of the U.S. economy. So Obama’s answer to a non-economic, non-functioning welfare system is to add a gigantic new program to it. How, with gimmicks and double counting!
If your a creditor with long-dated U.S. paper it’s reasonable to think you will be paid back with devalued dollars. And given the uncertainty caused by Obama’s socialistic, statist push of the economy, it’s reasonable to think that American consumers will not be back to buy your exports anytime soon. How can they, they don’t have jobs!
In short, our creditors should worry. And we should worry all the more!
Tom Motherway