Vince Deagler

hi everyone.  i will indulge my sarcastic side by sharing a wonderful interview i saw on msnbc’s financial channel.  it was with christina rohmer, one of our presidents financial advisers who is going back to teach at cal berkley.  since she was leaving, i guess they wanted to hear from her one last time.

anyway she smiled and said with a straight face all was right with the financial recovery that is clearly making progress before our very eyes.  she also commented on how the stimulus bill was working exactly as intended.  all this on a day when unemployment hit 9.6 percent.  this would be the same stimulus bill she helped design.  the same one she told us would prevent unemployment going beyond 8 percent.  the same one we were warned should we not pass it would result in unemployment of over 9 percent.  now with unemployment at 9.6 percent she is telling us it is working as intended.  how is that possible?  really, according to her we would be way better off had we done nothing.  unemployment would be lower and we wouldn’t have blown over a trillion dollars on the stimulus.

the difficulty in addressing that statement is where do you begin.  i know we have been told no one understood how bad things were.  but does that change the fact that:  1.  she and the presidents advisers developed this stimulus plan and told us why it was important to pass.  (this means they thought they had correctly analyzed the problem, and that this stimulus bill was the solution)  2.  the plan has not done what they said it would do.  (remember, unemployment at the time was 7.5 percent or so.  we were told if we pass the stimulus it would not go over 8 percent.  if we did not, unemployment would go over 9 percent.)  as i understand reality, only 2 possible conclusions are available to us.  they are incompetent or they are dishonest.  if either is true, why would we want to take their word for anything, or follow any of their plans???

another problem i have with this straight faced, everything is wonderful interview, is how history is being “spun”.  let me explain.  back in nov. 2006 an election was held where the democratic party took over both the house of representatives and senate.  at the beginning of 2007 the dow was around 12,500 (read your 401 k had a lot more money in it).  the deficit was 163 billion.  there were 7 million people unemployed, a rate of 4.6 percent.  and the foreclosure crisis had not yet hit (although the rate of foreclosure would rise 79 percent throughout 2007).  so we have a start point of 2007 when the dems take over the congress.  sure president bush was still the president, but the congress was lost.  do you remember how often you heard how bad things were?  how the economy was failing?  dow 12,500 then, 10,400 now, which is better?  unemployment 4.6 then, 9.6 now, which is better?  deficit 163 billion then, 1.5 trillion now, which is better.  the economy did not tank until the dems took control of congress and began to correct the problems of the bush years.  the cumulative effect of their solutions were not truly felt till the fall of 2008 when in the midst of financial meltdown we voted in the last piece in this puzzle, president obama.  and now some 2 years later what appeared to be so bad that it could not possibly get worse, has in fact got worse, because we have a president, his advisers, and a democratic congress fixing things.  aren’t you glad.  don’t you feel the love.  i’m glad we finally have the economy fixed.  we must be the luckiest people on the planet to have such a sharp group of economic leaders.  and the good news is, they are not done.  don’t know about you, but i can’t wait.

and then there is the whole saved or created jobs accounting.  i hear the politicians bring up the cbo figures constantly.  the cbo used a formula that projected for every dollar spent on stimulus, so many jobs would be saved or created.  now that the money has been spent, they total the spending, re-calculate there projected result and boldly announce it.  it is not a result based in reality, it is based in projection.  microsoft is not successful based on projection.  it makes a product, sells it at a profit, and the profits are real.  the type of accounting used to count “saved or created” jobs would make bernie madoff blush.  i could go on, i’ll spare you.

told you i would indulge my sarcastic side.  my advice for you is:  first and foremost put your trust in the lord.  no politician is gonna save us.  second, look at your own life and see if you can detect what has led to any success you have experienced.  (i will assume there will be a good bit of things like responsibility, hard work, discipline, sacrifice, wisdom, etc.)  third, vote for people who are pushing for policy that reflects your experience with success.  just a thought.

blessings, vince