Cartoon Redux

Naïve and ignorant is what the cartoon is being called over and over as people continue to protest. Seriously, is the good Reverend Sharpton famous for his chronic complaining? Is he ever in thespotlight with good news? What is truly naïve and ignorant is to look at this cartoon in a vacuum where no other news exists and where chimpanzees can only be cartooned as African Americans and not as... well chimps. Is your mind so in the gutter that this has to be racist? Has man, and the United States in particular, not made great strides against racism, particularly seeing how Mr. Obama just took the office of President? Could it not be seen, the day after a famous chimp was shot dead by police and as a stimulus "plan" faced mounting criticism, as simply a parody of current events?

For those that argue that it implies Mr. Obama should be shot because he wrote the stimulus, know that our President has better things to do than sit down and hammer out thousands of pages of a bill. He may have not even read the whole thing. For sure, he was briefed and his aids gave it the okay and he threw his support behind it, but the wording of the cartoon is aimed at the House, the Senate and the Executive, not at any one man. You need to come to grips with the fact that the bill is full of flaws (a new ice breaker for the Coast Guard?) and that it does seem that something of less than human intelligence wrote the thing. Tim Geithner (the man put in charge of the Treasury (and the IRS when he can't pay his own taxes, but I digress), shares just as much blame as do members of the House and Senate. For a miss this bad, it took lots of people screwing up.

Now I would like to move away from this cartoon nonsense and strictly focus on the plan itself. Apparently our elected officials feel the same way about their stimulus plans as they do about our financial institutions...too big to fail. Well, this bill has Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers written all over. Mr. Obama vows transparency and that he will "call out" local governments who misuse the money on pork spending. How is this even possible? You couldn't follow a single million of these dollars, let alone every single one. It is said this will save thousands of jobs and create new ones and that if we didn't have it, the economy slip to a place where it cannot be reversed. This is the justification for trying to fix taking on too much debt with taking on too much debt. As the global economy slips further (I am looking at you China) will they want to keep buying our debt? Is it still as good as gold?

Now, it is easy to not be faced with a task as momentous as Mr. Obama is (and one not of his own doing) and say how bad of a plan it is and not understand the need to do something. However, rather than that, I will offer what I would do if I were in a position to do anything about it other than blog on my blog that no one reads (Hi Mom).

My general plan would be a bit more like the way TARP had been working under Former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Former President Bush in that it wouldn't be a huge lump sum. It would be partitioned out as seen fit. Much easier to manage. Much easier to cut the unneccessary spending, which in my eyes is anything that doesn't immediately address the root of the problems (mortgages) or positively add jobs, both short term and long term. It is one thing to just build , build, build, but what happens when everything is built? You want people in steady jobs and investing in their future. Think a) helping people go to college; b) investing in a wide array of industries (alternative fuels, biotechnology or, here's an idea...the car industry and make them the best in the world again.); c) yes, rebuild our highways, bridges and rails and d) our public school system...overhaul it. Or in other words, think about what made us the world's best economy in the first place.

This would work to distribute the money as needed and with better plans. You think that, right now, great innovators will not come out of the woodwork if they knew they could go to the government and say "Hey, I got this great idea to do X and it will impact Y" and the government would consider giving you $Z, there wouldn't be another boom industry and some gem companies? Every boom comes with a bust. That is simple economics. As long as that boom is bigger than that bust, and not too much longer, we will be better off in the long run, which is all that should matter in economic policy. Short term fixes prove more costly than they are worth and are (duh!) shortsighted.

The second prong of the attack, I would be sure to shore up the next round of mortgage failings. When you are in a flood, do you stand waist deep with a bucket? No, you move to high ground, set up the sand bags and then get at the water starting ackle deep with a pump. It is the same with the thing that sparked the powder keg of this economic calamity, mortgages, specifically those which were nearly completely mortgaged against their own (rising) value. You need to start with those on the brink of foreclosure of defaulting on their payments. We can not afford another [income/situation] bracket to fall into the widening crater of defaults. Write down principal payments on those and shore up those on the brink. Next you can do what you can with those not too far under. Thats when you start doling out the remaining funds of the $50B or whichever figure (I haven't run the numbers) would be appropriate.

It is not good government to bail out people who mortgaged their house against itself to buy cars, boats and a second home or those who bought a $700,000 home with their $40,000 salary. But the banks got a bailout? The ripple on the pond is much smaller with a pebble than a rock. You do what you can, just like with some of the bailout funds with some of those that aren't too far under getting help and those (Lehman and Bear) who were already gone were let go. The "silent majority" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nFVsJ7j_ME) may have something to say about this. My thoughts on stopping foreclosures as a broad plan to help the economy are similar to my thoughts on universal healthcare. Why should I have to pay for the unheathly lifestyles of those who choose to not exercise, eat unhealthy, smoke, ect. and why should people have to pay for my drinking and not sleeping enough? Be prudent in your ways, live within your means and you will be able to take care of yourself.