09.21.08
Math Challenged Politicians: VOTB
The real tragedy of the current financial crisis is that politicians don’t understand economics. They want power and money and above all control. The funny part of the current economic crisis is that politicians don’t even understand what they are trying to control or regulate.
Most politicians on T.V. (especially McCain or Obama), will talk about regulating Wall Street. The T.V. hosts never ask the magic question ‘How do they plan to regulate?’ in specifics or everyday terms. The fact of this coming election is that Ron Paul or Bob Barr can make some sense of the financial mess. McCain admitted several months ago that he doesn’t understand economics. Obama is q-card clueless.
Incumbent politicians only understand how to secure their personal wealth and monies for their friends. National or global economics is as foreign to them as a talking tree. Otherwise they wouldn’t have repealed the ‘Glass-Steagall Act of 1933’. “That act separated investment banking from commercial banking to insure that investment bank speculation would not again destabilize commercial banks as it did during the Great Depression leading to the loss of America’s savings. However, in 1999, the US Congress (full of incumbent politicians) repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and America was once again vulnerable to the highly leveraged shenanigans of Wall Street.”
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1209999600.php
The fact is that Wall Street Wiz Kids have out-smarted everyone, including ignorant politicians. Ask any incumbent politician what a CDS is. Ask them how the overnight institutional lending works (the means private investors make millions of dollars with only a promise of collateral funding). The best question for them would be ‘Why did the Glass-Steagall Act work?’ and “Why did they vote to repeal it?”
Economics is not a requirement for a law degree as our incumbent politician’s ignorance of the subject is attesting. So, Wall Street people have run amuck. Politicians are calling for regulation (code for increasing control or socialism).
The answer to this financial crisis is based on the same subject matter our politicians don’t understand – economics. Economics is simply math. The easiest way monitor this mess includes numbers. Numbers don’t lie like politicians. Numbers are solid and without political bias, not like incumbent politicians. Numbers are a transparent as glass. They give black and white answers unlike politicians.
U.S. economic growth is currently based on the function of borrow and spend. Let some egghead economist put a number value on national borrowing and spending. Than put a number value on what the nation should be doing, saving and producing. Then divide the borrow/spend number by the saving/producing number. If the answer is more than 1, something is wrong.
Newly elected politicians with some economic background would be better suited to try a new common sense economic indicator. Fresh politicians would work more efficiently and more intelligently with a greater sense of responsibility than incumbent politicians. That’s why we need to Vote Out The (incumbent) Bums. VOTB
Epilogue:
We have McCain responding this week by playing Donald Trump’s “you’re fired”. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman noted recently that, in a moment of candor, John McCain admitted economics isn’t his thing. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/18/mccain-economy/
Obama is waiting for his script. He has supported tax hikes in the past and now is sounding like an economic conservative.
Only an ignorant populist would vote for either of these guys at the national level. Voters need to display courage. They need to look elsewhere for a one term politician in their local elections – ones that know numbers. VOTB
