Posted on 01/22/2009 7:52:06 PM PST by sickoflibs
On stimulating the economy:“The government can’t stimulate the economy. In the short run they can stimulate consumption. Consumption is the opposite of what we need and extra consumption will stifle the economy and the rebalancing that we need to have a viable recovery. We need consumers to spend less so they can save more”.
“The only stimulus would be less government, understand that government is in the way, government is a burden on the economy. The lighter the government the easier it is going to be for the market to correct for these imbalances. What we really want is more economic growth, which means more production, more factories, and more savings. The way to produce that is for government to shrink. If we can have the government a smaller burden on society it will be easier to get out of this hole.”
On building roads and bridges :”Just because we need them doesn’t mean we should build them. You know we’re broke and I don’t know if we can afford to make our roads fancier or nicer right now. We have more pressing needs. Sure, it would be great to have nicer roads and bridges when we can actually afford it. The problem is the resources we would use to re-build our roads and bridges are probably better needed elsewhere in our economy.”
On losing jobs :”People need to lose their jobs in certain areas so they can get jobs in others. Labor is being poorly allocated right now in our economy. We have people working in areas they shouldn’t be and now the government has to subsidize those companies to keep them in business but what they are really doing is preventing that labor from being more effectively used. We don’t want work for the sake of work, we want work for what it produces and what leads to…” More at:Peter Schiff 1/15/09 Wall Street Journal .
One of analogies Peter used. A person just lost his job. To stimulate his own economy, he’s going to go into debt by remodelling his bathroom
"The government can't fix the economy, it can only move our property from person to person, by taxing or printing more currency."
"The total cost to society is what the government spends, not just what we see it tax us"
"If devaluing currency made countries richer, the third world nations could just print themselves to world powers"
"We don't want work for the sake of work. We want work for what it produces"
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He makes way too much sense for politicians to actually take him seriously.
4later
same here. saving for later.
Sadly, the guy sounds like a fiscal conservative. I say “sadly” as I ponder the Baby Bush Administration and his massive war spending, Medicare D, etc... The way Baby Bush spent was liberalesque. Sad, very sad. It has been a loooooong time since we have had a fiscal conservative in the White House. Baby Bush had his chance to cut spending and had a Republican Legislature as well. All they did was spend, spend, spend... and borrow.
Very sad.
It’s downright depressing. Let’s not forget No Child Left Behind. The Federal Government continues to stick its tentacles everywhere, leaving nothing unscathed.
We elected the tone deaf in 2008.
In the short run they can stimulate consumption. Consumption is the opposite of what we need and extra consumption will stifle the economy and the rebalancing that we need to have a viable recovery.
We need consumers to spend less so they can save more”.
Great post!
That was classic Schiff. Peter is what we need now as the articulate and witty ‘ Prophet of Free Markets’ and the ‘nay-sayer of government intervention/socialism.’ We don’t need more dribble about how we need endless bailouts and endless stimulus packages and endless debt because the alternative is too terrible to speak of. We got the media and the party in power using public panic to gain support of their massive largest pork barrel redistribution project of all all time.
LOL . Thanks. I love stuff like this.
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