Deficit hysteria grips Washington -- Commentary: Obsolete thinking no longer fits facts (Barf!)

MarketWatch ^ | Feb. 16, 2011, | Darrell Delamaide

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Darrell Delamaide's Political Capital

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Deficit hysteria is rising to fever pitch in Washington as the political jockeying over the budget begins in earnest.

“Fiscal nightmare,” “buried under a mountain of debt,” “awash in red ink” – these are some of the colorful phrases being bandied about by politicians, pundits and even journalists ostensibly reporting facts. Most of them are winging it on a single undergraduate course in economics, if that, but they know they’re right because everybody agrees.

Yet, if you look out the window, you don’t see any red ink or mountains of debt. The only nightmare is unemployment continuing near 10% and ongoing waves of foreclosures – neither of which is attributable to the federal deficit and neither of which will be fixed by budget cuts.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Marketwatch seems to have a Deep Bench of these enlightened Deep Thinkers..../s

[org.whodat]

Deep thinking and market watch are complete strangers to each other and the truth.

[bert]

Darrell Delamaide a professional fear monger is whipping up the hysteria so he can report on it after it happens

[Seruzawa]

Wow. I’ve read some stupid opinion pieces in my time but this has to be a contender for the stupidest. Maybe it should be framed alongside the notorious picture of Neville Chamberlain.

[swain_forkbeard]

“The only nightmare is unemployment continuing near 10%.”

I started my Federal Tax Return. The process and the results certainly qualify as a nightmare.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It's just that we haven't been properly educated on the latest in Economic Theories....deep sarcasm.

Guess we need to confine our reading to Paul Krugman...or Reich...(another clown)

[SE Mom]

I picked up my dog-eared copy of The Forgotten Man last night- it’s more apt as each day passes.

Also- just found a really interesting piece here:

http://www.myfoxchattanooga.com/dpp/news/Wisconsin-Budget-Battle-Underscores-History-of-HandWringing-Over-PublicSector-Unions_96566985

~snip~

To appreciate the size of the problem for Wisconsin taxpayers, here’s what it would take if the state decided to raise the money now to cover its pension promises.

“If you wanted to simply solve it this year,” Eakin said, “you would have to raise the state and local taxes of the average Wisconsin resident by 325 percent. And if you wanted to solve it with just the state’s preferred instrument - a sales tax - you would have to change the rate from 5 percent to 98 percent.”

...

Even union icons such as George Meany, the legendary former president of the AFL-CIO, dismissed the workability of public sector unions as “impossible.”

And Sherk notes that other labor leaders were also skeptical.

“You had the AFL-CIO executive council in 1959 saying that, in terms of collective bargaining, government employees have the same right as every other citizen — to petition Congress for redress of grievances, but nothing beyond that,” he said.

And in Wisconsin, even the socialist mayor of Milwaukee in the 1950s, Frank Zeidler, opposed public sector unions.

He wrote that the rise of unions for government workers made it difficult for officials to protect taxpayers, warning that public sector unions “can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates.”

~snip~

[nascarnation]

The bad news:

$5 gas
economy tanks again
trillion dollar deficits

The good news:

Baraq is toast for 2012
(I had some concerns things could be briefly improving for Nov 012 working in Obama’s favor - no way that happens now)

[NurdlyPeon]

I picked up my dog-eared copy of The Forgotten Man last night- it’s more apt as each day passes.

Try reading a copy of "The Secret Man". More interesting and enjoyable.

[old curmudgeon]

“Yet, if you look out the window, you don’t see any red ink or mountains of debt.”

I like that analogy.

We are like pasengers on a plane. The fed is the flight crew, the congress the ground crew (the enablers).

We are in the rear, looking out the window at the scenery, the mountains, the lakes, etc.

We have no idea how much fuel is on board. We have no idea that it is about to be exhausted and that very soon the engines will flame out....

But don’t worry. The crew will take care of it.

[Desron13]

UNFLIPPINGBELIEVEABLE! Just reading the first three paragraphs gave me a severe migraine and temporarily (I hope) lowered my IQ by several points. Exposure to this level of stupidity should be avoided at all cost.

[fhayek]

go to http://www.usdebtclock.org/. The the total unfunded mandate for Social Security, Medicare and the Prescription Drug Plan is over $112 trillion. Is that a high enough mountain for you?

[ripley]

“Baraq is toast for 2012...”

All those brilliant, intellectual, really really smart Independent geniuses may not agree with you. (They go left at the slightest puff of wind from the brilliant geniuses in the media.)

IMHO

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

This clown clearly doesn't read or believe the little booklet:

The Gold investor's Bible

[Marine_Uncle]

Krugman and Reich. Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!