Friends, while lefties obsess over made-up scandals like President Trump's entirely fictional romantic relationship with his long-time secretary, the country faces real problems, like our ballooning debt, and the rising burden of making interest payments on that debt. Meanwhile, we continue to spend far beyond our means, and neither Democrats nor Republicans show any genuine inclination towards fiscal responsibility. How long can the spending spree continue? Probably pretty long, as this is a very rich country, and it takes time for insolvency to become apparent. We have to admit, though, that President Trump has not been, in any meaningful sense, part of the solution. Instead, he's part of the problem, spending-wise, although there's plenty of blame to go around! Much of it (most of it?) rests with the voters themselves, who always want something for nothing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70gp8252ejo
Dr. Waddy: Rosie O'Donnell is as obnoxious as to be beneath contempt. Anything she says should be immediately dismissable but her viciousness this time seems to have no limit. All American far leftists long ago forfeited any moral authority to castigate the sexual peccadillos of any public figure by their once and forever reverence for debauched and perversely exemplary B. Clinton. 'Nuff said about those low life's.
ReplyDeleteI'm unschooled on economics but: perhaps our almost fantastic economic dynamism is as unprecedented as to have manifested also social, political, legal phenomenon for which the past offers us no examples(?). Eg: modern communications , transportation and medicine.
Common sense alone inveighs against runaway debt. So many have experienced the fearful way credit card debt can take on a life of its own, like a raging fire!
Maybe the discipline of macroeconomics can establish that such appalling national debt is an inevitable consequence of such miraculous material well being and that its myriad benefits outweigh its risks. Didn't Keynes consider deficit spending , even purposely enacted , to be on balance a beneficial practice? Is his thought still influential? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe he is not well thought of by conservatives.
A knowledgeable friend of mine once told me : " the national debt is controllable : just raise taxes"(?!)
But maybe also our inexperience with the unimaginable wealth Americans enjoy so very widely conceals the harbingers of a disaster dwarfing the Great Depression and that those among us who see it gathering are unable to convince us? I don't know if scholars or common sense business people have ever agreed on the causes of the Depression of the '30s. Had a visionary Cassandra in , say, 1919 or even during the Roaring '20s plausibly warned of it , would an America understandably fascinated by the advent of technological developments affording comforts never before known by people anywhere and anytime:would they have paid attention?My guess is that successful economists must be well schooled in psychology, sociology, communications, geography , philosophy and political science to make creditable predictions on this as yet maybe not fully comprehended modern wonder.
Dr. Waddy: Though he has not (maybe yet) managed to reign in total spending President Trump has directly confronted some of the most objectionable far left misallocations of tax payers' mandated remissions.Eg. PBS and NPR were characteristic assertions of far left arrogation of the unchallengeable worthiness of using public funds to advance convictions which so many tax payers disagree with. He cut off their allowances. It wasn't the amount involved so much as the imperious attitude these snobs displayed in enacting and defending such injustice which makes his actions in this regard so welcome. Too, he has applied this resolve in settings involving huge sums: eg. "universities" receiving Federal aid but which insist on mandating campus regimes grossly intolerant of the political views of hundreds of millions of taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteJust for starters, how much does our War Against Iran cost, so far? No! I'm not asking if it a Just War. I'm asking if it cost money, and approximately how much to date? Is this a complicated question?
Ray: should read "if it is a Just War".
DeleteRay: I don't know and even if I knew the amount, I probably could not appreciate it. It seems like now a billion is a modest number. I think the US has never been ruined by wartime expenditures as have so many others.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
ReplyDeleteI probably don't want to know the amount either. Ha! Nevertheless, this Iran thing is no doubt something that had to be done, no matter what, or the consequences of not doing it would be disastrous. In my humble opinion, it is money well spent. Not enough kudos go to our Armed Forces, not to mention Israel.
Dr. Waddy and Ray et Al: Be of good cheer! Our armed forces now have a belated champion: why the "American" far left itself.
ReplyDeleteThis is manifested in their touching concern for living conditions on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Why, radical MSNBC broadcasts regular lugubrious accounts lamenting the injustice of it all! Now we do know though of the far left's traditional affection for and support of our armed forces. I mean , taking the time and trouble to preempt their seditious daily routine to spit on combat veterans returning from Vietnam. Probably some of those '60s merry makers will be on the pier warming up for some nostalgic expectoration as the Lincoln's crew disembarks. If not, that's ok ; there are plenty of their modern avatars eager to reprise their elders' vicious glory.
But no, I don't really think our DSA and its obsequious enthusiasts, including its MSNBC patriots, give a wharf rat's rear about the well being of our soldiers, airmen and sailors. What they want is to provoke dissension and dysfunction throughout our forces, the better to bring about our defeat in the Iran War and tank our services' morale as they did during and after Vietnam. And getting America to lose confidence in its defenses so that they can be disarmed ; don't forget that goal.
I spent 4 years working above deck on a carrier. We got my ears blasted off and got cooked in that S.E. Asian steam cooker ; when we retired to our fitful slumbers we were serenaded by the crash of catapults and the roar of afterburners one flight deck separated from our palatial living quarters. We regularly stood all night watches. Sometimes in the hottest weather they turned off the showers because they needed freshwater for the ship's many steam functions. We had 5000 in our crew, just like the Lincoln. Personal hygiene was often not attended to adequately , with fetid consequences. All together it was no day at the beach.
The most I experienced was 60 continuous days at sea. In that time things got kind of raunchy on board. 260+ days plus , like the Lincoln's crew endured : I don't know for sure why that was done ; I did think we had enough carriers to afford the Lincoln earlier relief. But my mind is open to the possibility that it could have been operationally necessary.
Whatever consideration is given to the Lincoln's experience, I think the far left's eager "sympathetic" attention to it is completely disingenuous and is the product of antiAmerican resolve.
"whatever well deserved consideration . . . ". Jack
ReplyDeleteRay: I agree with you on the necessity of this war. If we and Israel don't do it then a mentally and emotionally unstable regime with a penchant for glorious suicide credibly threatens any country which excites its easily manifested wrath with nukes. That's utterly unacceptable. We have the financial means , we must do this.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: I enjoy plausible alternative historical fiction. But sometimes history itself is more astonishing than the best of that genre.
ReplyDeleteWho might have predicted that murderous world marxism's worst foe, the US, would some day experience counterintuitive and viable Marxist invasion of its own body politic. THAT! After 100 million killed by their own commie governments and a seemingly conclusive rout of such pariah regimes at the end of the 20th century!
Well, we do! We now have the monstrously bizarre commencement of openly expressed unmistakeably communist convictions and intent in the midst of an important national election. Those who enthusiastically tout these views, which once consigned their advocates to the political gutter, sincerely believe they have a chance to enter the very mainstream of our polity. They have in all likelihood preempted the once loyal "Democrat" party , an astounding and very ominous feat. Good old early '60s even pre baby boomer political debut Barry Sanduhs trumpets their now inevitable triumph and its coming "fundamental transformation" of an essentially unjust America.
Everyone with common sense knows Marxism has only catastrophic and inhuman consequences when it achieves power.History undeniably confirms it and even today's Marxist activists know it. Some of the Bolsheviks actually thought they were doing good for humanity but today's far left "revolutionaries" have to KNOW FULL WELL what they advance. So what motivates them? EVIL!: unalloyed ,purposeful, murderously malign conviction. That's its essence; its self evident. Of course it takes cynical advantage of massive and brainless worker ant cadre some of whom actually do believe it to be supportable by people of good will.
Heretofore Marxism was able to subjugate nations already in desperate straits; a prosperous and just US presented it with a new challenge. It thought it had an early opportunity for takeover in the Age of Aquarius. NOT! So instead it feigned good citizenship and penetrated many of our most important political and social institutions. They think now its time for the final main and open push to the point of eventual inevitability.
We have the most demonstrably anticommunist national administration since that of President Reagan, But we face a Marxist rump far more experienced and wiser than that of his time. President Trump and VP Vance are fully aware of this. If we do not support them and the GOP now, a truly fantastic alternate history , that of a "People's Republic" of guaranteed utter totalitarian definition, may become our lot!
Dr. Waddy: I was wrong to call all supporters of Marxists "brainless". Some are intelligent and good willed but are nonetheless tragically mistaken. Reason it however one does , Marxism is a thoroughly, ineluctably condemned doctrine the objective consequences of which are at every point comparable to those of universally detested Naziism.
ReplyDeleteAbove I should have said "Heretofore Marxism was able only to subjugate nations in desperate straits . . . ."
Dr. Waddy: Above also: My sarcasm led me to misrepresent an America which has made great strides in honoring our military and its veterans ever since the '90s. If any of those execrable '60s lowlifes or their devotees were to show up to harass the Lincoln crew they would probably be mobbed.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Notes from the People's Republic of NY: Our junior Senator, Charles Schumer's factotum KIrsten Gillibrand , DEMANDS that the war with Iran be terminated by the Trump administration!
ReplyDeleteOh, so the possibility of Iran ever having nuclear weapons is finally, objectively, irrevocably denied them, yes? No?! Well gee , that is the essential purpose of our war effort and it hasn't been confirmed yet. Winning a war is a time honored rationale for going to war. Failure to achieve that end is usually termed defeat. That appears to be our delegate's wish; it certainly would be the objective consequence of US submission to her august will.
The millions of common sense adults in NY state are outvoted statewide by the dominant far left in the massive amoeba on the Hudson. Consequently our state continues to inject into our national polity the lala land convictions of reflexively counterintuitive NYC. Ours is a pariah state governed by an imperious one party DSA/Dem dictatorship which regards common sense America with patronizing, withering contempt and is rapidly becoming far worse. It is a DSA prototype communist beach head in our democracy.
To be clear, Rosie O'Donnell was not the "elephant in the room" to which I was referring...
ReplyDeleteIs deficit spending a good thing? It could be, and it is certainly sustainable, but it depends on the scale of the deficits. If your economy grows at 2% a year (which ours seems to), then run a modest deficit and let it grow 2% a year... We don't do that. Our deficit is huge, even by the generous standards of our massive economy. $2 trillion is way too much to be borrowing year after year.
Jack, cutting NPR and PBS out of the federal budget is great...but it was barely noticed by NPR and PBS, and it had zilch impact on our fiscal solvency.
Probably the Iran War has cost circa $40 billion so far, but then there's the economic disruptions, which have been far more damaging. It ain't a cheap enterprise. Of course, whatever burdens it has imposed are easily met by the USA. They are met with only the most extreme difficulty by Iran.
I totally agree: the Left's crocodile tears for the sailors on the Abraham Lincoln are just that: FAKE!!! This is the reflecting pool nonsense all over again. Having said that, the Dems may be playing on the American people's heart strings effectively. Time will tell.