Posted on 10/10/2010 11:27:22 AM PDT by jfd1776
The Troika of President Barack H. Obama (D, Trier Tavern Club), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, Lubyanka Square), and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, Cheka) has been assigned the duty of looking after a lovely but non-functioning automobile. It sputtered for awhile, then stopped. Now when you turn the key, it just makes that well-known “click-click-click” sound. It doesn’t do a thing....
So they washed it... and they waxed it... and they detailed it,... “It’s sure to work now!” But when they turned the key… nothing.
Wonder why...
The broken-down car above is the housing sector – a broad sector of the economy, and critical. Everything the Troika has thrown at it has failed to produce so much as a blip.
Their own talents won't do the trick; they need to turn to a real mechanic.
We can all see that the group at issue here – currently based in Washington, D.C., but hopefully not for long – really can’t tell the difference between their own talents and the talents of others. They stubbornly refuse to give up on their own methods in favor of the proven methods of others, no matter how obvious is their failure, no matter how doomed their continued effort. They just don’t know – won’t admit – that they’re out of their element....
Continue reading "Washed, Waxed, and Detailed..." in Illinois Review
(Excerpt) Read more at illinoisreview.typepad.com ...
Another blog pimp.
Aren't you proud enough of wrote you wrote to post the whole thing?
When a car click click clicks, it still may work. Could be a connection, the starter, the alternator, or the battery needs a charge. If you replace the faulty components the thing should turn over. But you will get dirty and it may take a while to fix the problems.
Trouble with fixing cars is that those on the sidelines are unhappy that the car broke down, unhappy about waiting for it to be fixed, and pretty much b*tch until they ask you to drive them when their free bus passes run out and the driver no longer accepts food stamps as payment.
Why not post the whole thing here?
Here we'll explore why...
Where? On your blog where the whole content is?
Or HERE, where you have just posted an EXCERPT for no reason?
Ummm... not sure I understand your question...
We’re limited to 300 words in this sort of excerpt, so I just summarize the first portion when I post on FreeRepublic, and then include the link in case a reader is interested.
To be fair I don’t think a different administration or having Republicans in charge would change the situation much. The prescriptions might be different but the result the same.
Why? Because all this talk of recovery but no one ever asks: WHAT ARE WE RECOVERING?
The economic system we had never made sense and was unsustainable no matter who was in charge.
An economy based on unsustainable levels of consumer spending, based on unsustainable levels of consumer debt, fed by unsustainable real estate valuation rise is ... well ... NOT SUSTAINABLE.
The perpetual growth model we’ve had for the last 30-40 years is NOT SUSTAINABLE.
So, why are we trying to ‘recover’ ourselves back into an unsustainable consumer/debt economic system that both parties seem subscribe to as normal and realistic?
What we need is an economy based on real jobs, making real things that real people need in our own country. We need to drop the hyper consumer “shop till you drop” (on credit) mentality that has us fill our houses to the rafters with stuff made anywhere but here.
I see zero evidence that Republicans ‘get it’ any more than Democrats do.
Lorianne, I couldn’t disagree more.
In reading your note, I hear the echo of Jimmy Carter’s malaise speech in the background... “make do with less, the era of growth is over...”
In fact, our economy can continue to grow, even to skyrocket, but as you said, it needs to be based on real business activity. Lower taxes and less regulation can bring back the manufacturing that we’ve lost. The right kind of immigration controls, respect for the right kind of education, can make our culture united and American again.
So don’t be defeatist. We just need to to unleash the limitless potential of limited government!
So, you put in a request to FR to limit your own blog to posting excerpts? You don't HAVE to excerpt your own blog. Or, didn't you know that?
Okay, but what real business activity does reviving the housing market grow?
I think we do have to make do with less ... if having more means being in debt up to our eyeballs.
That’s how we got into this mess both personally and government as well (spending 3x more than revenue).
Can you honestly say living beyond one’s means, living on credit to the extent many people have done and to the extent our government has done is a sustainable economic model?
Interesting, Raybbr... I’ve been doing this for a year, and this is the first time anyone’s ever objected. Gonna have to think about it.
I tend to write rather long pieces — 1500 to 2000 words — so I just put a smidgeon on FreeRepublic and drive it back to Illinois Review if people are interested. Looking out for Free Republic’s server space, on the one hand, and driving traffic to IR on the other. Just trying to be responsible!
But I’ll admit that some articles lend themselves to the excerpt-and-redirect approach better than others, and this one was quite cumbersome that way. You’re recommending that I post the full article in future then?
(not being a real blogger myself — I just write articles posted on others’ sites like Illinois Review and American Thinker — I guess I don’t know all the protocol!)
As for bandwidth, text takes up very little. If you start including photos that's another story.
(not being a real blogger myself — I just write articles posted on others’ sites like Illinois Review and American Thinker — I guess I don’t know all the protocol!)
Just curious. Do you get an remuneration from those sites for posting and directing traffic to the site?
I don't know how that works but it's clear that some bloggers post on FR simply to generate hits.
Lorianne -
Sorry, too much to cover here! I try to cover it in my article... the housing market provides business activity, not only to real estate agents, but also to builders, manufacturers, distributors, home improvement stores, etc.
Housing is key to so much, but not just home prices and mortgages, and that’s all that the idiots in the troika are willing to concentrate on!
JFD
No, Raybbr, I’m not paid for articles or for redirects... but I think if they put up with my articles (some of which are rather strange), I should want to support them, and redirecting to help build IR feels like an appropriate way to do so. But you’ve given me something to think about!
Thanks!
Are you serious? The Housing Market is the backbone of the economy.
I’m in the industry myself, so I KNOW how much housing affects.
But why do we need more housing that people can’t afford. There is a 103 month overhang on foreclosures alone. And illegal immigration was/is driving much housing growth.
Is this what we want?
Your article makes some good points but I think you’re missing the big picture the same as the Democrats (but in a different way). We overbuilt housing and people over-extended themselves to buy it ... it’s called a bubble.
The bubble has now burst and recovering a bubble should not be our goal.
I’d love for housing to pick up again, my livlihood depends on it. But there is a bigger problem here than just reviving the housing market.
That's what I figured. You forgot bankers and mortgage lenders.
That's the exact attitude that got us into trouble and that's the point I think "Lorianne" was trying to make.
People remodeling homes, putting on roofs, installing plumbing, etc. while providing some jobs does not increase the GDP of the U.S. Most of what is involved in the jobs you talk about is either paper wealth (equity loans, mortgages) or goods produced overseas.
What happens when we are where we are now? The service jobs that the housing industry supports are among the first to go in a recession.
The housing industry, as its become known, has replaced the pyramid schemes of the seventies and eighties.
We need to return to government getting out of the way of businesses to build and grow.
Relying on roofers and framers, etc, to keep a 12 trillion dollar economy afloat is unsustainable.
What happens when there is no one left to buy a home?
Oh, man. Thanks for the laugh.
What percentage of GDP does "housing" represent?
The US economy has tried to grow by having people replace their roofs.
Obama tried to stimulate the economy by creating bike paths in suburban areas.
National economies just don't grow that way.
We need to extract resources, manufacture goods, and sell those goods -- preferably to people in other countries. We have a whole lot of government activity (regulations and taxes) which make those necessary activites hard to do -- and that's why the economy isn't growing.
What do you wear? mostly imported clothes. What do you drive? mostly imported cars. What do you buy in the store? mostly imported electronics, imported nicknacks...
Nothing against imports, but if you’re concerned about US manufacturing, housing is the place to concentrate.
We make the siding here. We make the roofing shingles here. We make sump pumps in Ohio and plumbing pipe in Illinois and water filters in California and air conditioners in Wisconsin...
Housing — not just McMansions, but all housing, all construction, all remodeling — is the home of dozens of whole industries in the USA. It’s wonderful. It’s the backbone of our economy.
You bet it matters!
JFD
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