I’ve been thinking about promises. Actually I’ve been thinking about the recovery, changes, taxes and benefits, trade, most-favored nation status, diplomacy, unemployment, the FED, and Bernanke. Christmas is a time of promise, of optimism, of love, and of family. There is a heart-warming underpinning that lifts the spirit as to what will come in the year to be. So far all of my local (and family) events have lived up to this positive-ness of mind. I need these because when I turn my attention beyond the confines of these happy one-on-ones around here, the picture is hardly Norman Rockwell. We all need some Norman Rockwell right now, BIGTIME!!!
You see we have enjoyed neither a statewide, nor a national recovery in 2010. Far from it… From the looks of the way things are shaping up, 2011 will be no better and neither will 2012, or 2013. Sure we are getting promises of better times ahead, but where are the solutions, where are the results, and (as the late Clara Peller) said, “where’s the beef?” To get change, we need to make changes(s) at the state and national level. The broadcasts, the spin, the hype, and the speeches blatantly tell us we are destined for more of the same. Face the reality, the “same” hasn’t worked, but by golly we are going to get more of “the same” regardless. $ugar coating a bitter pill is one thing, but $ugar coating a toxic poison is quite another. Uncle $ugar is now aggressively cherry flavoring the arsenic. Bon appetite!!!
The center of debate and negotiations now is on the tax cuts renewal, and extending unemployment benefits beyond 99 weeks. Both of these solutions will add to the growing deficits. If you can’t find a job in almost TWO YEARS, it is high time to change careers! I mean… TH*NK about it??? What good will “giving” out compensation until a person finds new job do, but give them an early retirement? On the second point, the way I see it; if you are making more than $200,000 a year, you can chip into the kitty to help out this troubled nation that allowed you to make THAT INCOME! Honestly, how many people do you know who clear that kind of cash in a year? If you are getting it as passive income, how much do you ALREADY have in investments, and capital? Jeeze Louise… Debating on how much of BOTH goodies Uncle $ugar can dole out, solves nothing. The true solution rests in doing NEITHER!!!
We got rich as a nation by working, making, and selling our wares. Our status as the richest, most powerful nation in all of history in the 1950s and 1960s came from us selling more of our goods and materials to the rest of the planet than we bought from them. Our demise from THAT status began when we commenced running a series of ongoing trade deficits. THAT led to our transformation from the largest creditor to the largest debtor in ONE generation. Our trade policies stink, pure and simple. There is an underlying concept in trade and diplomacy of “most-favored nation” status. If we have granted that to a nation, anytime anybody else gets a “goodie,” all those with “most-favored” nation status reap the same benefit without giving us a single thing back in return.
Free trade sounds good on paper, but where is the quid pro quo? We accept virtually ALL foreign made goods here, while our “stuff” is for the most part turned away at their borders, or saddled with a duty, limitation, or tariff. This has to stop, NOW!!! How can our people go back to work, when the playing field is NOT level. We face an uphill route to scoring any points, while the rest of the planet lets their goods roll downhill to our unprotected goal. Our trade envoys and diplomats need to get off their butts, and re-negotiate ALL of these ill-gotten, one-sided agreements. The US marketplace is the ultimate in “carrots,” so use it. Such a hard nosed approach will hurt us for a while because we make no TV’s, radios, cell phone, socks, underwear, or shirts in this country. (You TH*NK I am kidding???) Most of the world’s “gotta have” products were invented here, so how come none of these are presently manufactured here anymore? Cheap, or slave labor has never solved anything in the long run, trust me.
Our US Treasury is dying in debt, while “their” FEDERAL RESERVE BANK is $ugar coating the poison. FED Chairman Bernanke was on 60 MINUTES Sunday evening. I was embarrassed for him, and for the United States of America. Has it come to this? His only current “solution” is to buy our own debt with still more fiat (printed) money. The policy will not stop with the $600 BILLION that he proposes. His solution is to devalue the dollar via the back door, the “giving” the dollar a so-called advantage in trade in the short run. It is true this Quantitative Easing (the sequel) will accomplish that in the short term. The effects will last only as long as it takes for the rest of the world to revalue their currencies downward accordingly. Days? Weeks? A month? A cancerous growth to our money supply will destroy it in the long term. QE2 is a horrific decision. They know this, but there is no ammo left in their arsenal!
This I promise…
I’m Fred Cederholm and I’ve been thinking. You should be thinking, too.
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