Ken's Comments

The common result of a government spending more money than it earns is devaluation of its currency. The US government's deficit increased during the Bush Administration. The Democrats and the Obama Admiminstration lifted that deficit to an enormous new level. A common effect of currency devaluation is inflation. In a bad economy, that is going to be a real problem - just ask people who lived through the Jimmy Carter Administration. First of all, let's spread this blame in a non-partisan fashion. Republicans during the Bush Adminstration years controlled Congress and the White House and they showed no fiscal discipline. The Bush Administration capped this by spending a ton of money in 2008 to try to prevent or curtail the recession - first having a stimulus tax cut at the beginning of the year and then approving the TARP bailout funds - easily a trillion dollars spent last year to prevent the recession. Now, we have the Obama Administration spending another trillion dollars for ...

Interesting to see how President Obama is following in President Bush's footsteps on a number of important policies. For example President Obama is continuing: To bail out AIG The TARP program for Banks To bail out of GM and Chrysler The withdrawal from Iraq Not releasing photos of prisoner abuse Spending significantly more federal dollars than the amount of taxes collected There are others, but time does not permit me to research them all. It shows that President Bush's policies were not so horrible as was suggested by Democratic candidates on the campaign trail. At the same time, one must admit there are some things President Obama has done differently - environmental issues and cracking down on credit card companies would be two areas of difference that are notable and laudable. There are areas, such as rgulatory reform of mortgage lending or types of stock trading, where President Bush did not have a chance to offer solutions

Denials by President Obama to the contrary, I have some real questions about this Administration's micromanagement of the businesses to whom they are lending taxpayer dollars. Some things they are doing make sense and are consistent with the way business normally operates. But there are a number of things this Administration is doing which exceed the boundaries of normal operations and some are both scary and can create further economic calamity. Unfortunately, no one in the "main stream media" (e.g. not labeled conservatives) are challenging the President on this. Let's start by giving credit, where credit is due - President Bush started us down this path with the bailout of AIG, the $700 million for banks under TARP, and the decision to lend money to the auto makers. President Obama is carrying on programs that President Bush started. Second, if the government is going to provide money to companies then the Government, like any lender, has the right to try to p...

Earlier some Republican Governors announced they would decline Federal Stimulus funds and the media and political opponents were highly critical. The State of PA is quietly considering whether to do the same thing. The Philadelphia Inquirer does a nice job of laying out the issues that point to why a state should consider rejecting "free money" to help unemployed workers. The gist of the Inquirer article (cited below) is essentially this - the PA Unemployment Fund is broke. The downturn in the economy has outstripped the funds available. A panel was appointed to figure out what to do. One of the things they were asked to consider is whether the state should accept $273 million in federal funds from the Stimulus package. Why would PA, or any state, reject free money from the federal government? Well primarily because it is not free. It will cost the Pennsylvania $300 million to get $273 million in federal funds. As the Inquirer article does a good job of describing, to ...

President Obama did a very good thing yesterday. He took executives of credit card companies to the woodshed in a private meeting with them. The President then outlined a list of practices he wants to see credit card companies implement. Congratulations to President Obama for doing a very good thing. Credit card companies have long used scads of small print to mislead consumers and to be able to change terms at a whim from those the consumer agreed to at the time of entering into the contract to borrow. These have included shortening payment cycles, raising interest rates, and imposing penalties. The result is that some Americans are deeper in debt merely because of these changes and not because of their borrowing habits. There is a proper use for government regulation and this is it. President Obama has called for clear disclosure of credit card terms, ending the unilateral ability of credit card companies to change the contract terms with little or no notice and, most important...

I was moved to post my thoughts on President Obama's economic policies in order to, in some small way, counter the comments of pro-Obama media persons. Specifically, Janeane Garofalo ranted (I believe on MSNBC) that everyone who opposed President Obama is a racist. She said a lot of other things derogatory about such opponents too -- tea-bagging, rednecks I think was another term used. Paul Begala, a CNN commentator, said on the Don Imus radio show that everyone who opposed President Obama's tax policies were unpatriotic. He added a variety of other derogatory comments as well. Well, if not wanting to see a return to the economic conditions that existed during the period of 1979 to 1982 makes me a racist or unpatriotic, then so be it. Unfortunately, pro-Obama commentators don't seem to want to discuss rational arguments, they just want to resort to name calling. p.s. Page back to my discussion of what is a conservative point of view if you wonder why I say "Pro-Obama...

I am very concerned that the President's policies are going to lead this country into more serious economic problems than we have today. This is not to say that all aspects of the Obama Administration's policies are wrong. However, the fundamental premise of these policies is wrong. I have not heard anyone in the Obama Administration admit the difficult truth that the economy is changing nor does it seem that the goals they are pursuing reflect that. If the economy does not recover along the lines they project, then the massive expenditures being made will come home to roost in the former of significant inflation. The Obama Administration has called for spending massive amounts of money over the next few years. These amounts will raise the national debt to staggering new levels. Some of the things they are spending on are good ideas -- green technology, improving the environment, more mass transit, supporting Amtrak. All of these are good ideas. However these are merely...