Posted on 04/23/2009 5:07:55 AM PDT by Tolik
We are in a weird age.
Do the smart thing, we were told, and invest in a 401(k) retirement account. Buy into the American dream and own your own home. But lately it seems that those who put their money in low-earning passbook savings accounts or rented rather than buying may have been better off.
Indeed, almost all the old familiar benchmarks of modern American life seem to be going by the wayside.
The blue-chip corporations that were long the brand names of world manufacturing and finance — American International Group, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Chrysler, Citigroup, General Motors, and Lehman Brothers — are either gone or teetering on insolvency.
The old-guard newspaper industry is fading — the Tribune Company is in bankruptcy court, Hearst at one point threatened to shut down the San Francisco Chronicle, the Rocky Mountain News is already gone. The stock price of the New York Times is worth about the same as its Sunday paper.
Washington is more confusing. Bill Clinton balanced his last budgets but raised taxes. George Bush increased deficits but cut taxes. But now taxes, spending, and deficits soar all at once. We are lectured that prior reckless federal spending and borrowing got us into this mess — but now are told that even more federal spending and borrowing will get us out of it.
We’ve seen housing sales slump when home prices were high but interest rates low. Or when prices were low but interest high. Or when prices and interest were alike high. But we never have seen a bad housing market in which both home prices and mortgage interest rates were low.
Nonsense is passed off as wisdom. Those who caused the financial meltdown walked away with millions in bonuses while taxpayers covered the debts they ran up. The big-spending government claims it may cut our annual $1.7 trillion deficit in half by 2012 — but only after piling up trillions more in national debt.
In our Orwellian world, borrowing to spend what we don’t have has been renamed “stimulus.” Those who pay no federal income taxes — almost half of Americans — can somehow be promised an income tax “cut.” In the new borrowing of trillions of dollars here and trillions there, billions of dollars now sounds like pocket change.
When Americans turn to their political parties for answers, they are even more confused. Populist Democrats such as Sen. Chris Dodd and Pres. Barack Obama took more AIG campaign cash than did pro-business Republicans.
And the list of big-tax liberals who cheated or avoided taxes they want to raise on others is astounding — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who oversees the Internal Revenue Service; failed Obama Cabinet nominee Tom Daschle; and Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Yet conservative Republicans during the Bush administration ran up the debt and increased federal spending far more than did liberals under Bill Clinton. A Republican president has not balanced a budget since Dwight Eisenhower did it over a half-century ago.
Abroad, we thought piracy ended with the age of sail — only to learn that the world’s 21st-century navies either will not or cannot sink a few brigands in speedboats. Meanwhile, a U.N. conference against racism showcased Iranian president — and Holocaust-denier — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spouting anti-Semitic hatred.
The old “bad” unilateral war in Iraq is now quiet; the once “good” multilateral effort in Afghanistan is not. We are warned that we must be careful not to explicitly associate the radical Islam that fueled the September 11 attacks with terrorism; yet, we are advised that we should worry about returning American veterans as potential terrorists.
When our president references the 19th and 20th centuries, he apologizes for American sins but stays silent about the United States’s defeat of the Nazis, fascists, Japanese militarists, and Soviet Communists. The world hears contrition about Americans dropping the bomb to end World War II but never remorse from those responsible for Darfur, Grozny, or Tibet.
There have been a few crazy years like 2009 in American history — 1860, 1929, 1941, and 1968. And given what followed all of them, it might be wise to prepare for even crazier times for us ahead.
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/
NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
This president (and his minions) is burning down the house.
VDH bump
There are no contradictions. They are doing it on purpose. They’d rather reign in hell than co-exist with the rest of us in heaven.
War is coming.
The Obama Administration is proposing just this: In order to get sober, drink A LOT more bourbon.
Yeah, that’ll do it.
Good post of Victor Hanson Davis.
Oops. Victor Davis Hanson.
NO president has balanced a budget since Dwight Eisenhower did it over a half-century ago.
According to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the last year the national debt went down was 1957.
Clinton got within about $20 billion of breaking-even once, but the national debt increased every single year of his presidency.
I suppose that’s because money collected for Social Security was counted as income, even though it was invested in US bonds. They add to the debt, but aren’t counted in the budget as a deficit. Cute trick.
Just wait until the 70 trillion in unfunded entitelments begin to come due in the next decade. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
True. But rhetorically speaking - when we learned this year that money can be counted in “trillions” - Clinton’s “within about $20 billion of breaking-even” sounds good enough. Of course, without Gingrich republicans on his case, Clinton would not done it. But the larger point remains: the republican congress during the Bush administration forgot what fiscal responsibility means.
I can add another related point. Republican *party* is not a single idea party like many parliamentary parties of Europe, Israel, etc, but more a *coalition*. There is a very substantial number of socially moderate people and lots of businessmen who voted R for the reason of fiscal responsibility. They are not ideological and can be persuaded to swing. I know quite a good number of those personally. When Republicans stopped being fiscally responsible, these people voted Obama on the “feel good” reason alone. Shallow and not forward thinking? Yes. But it’s the fact.
Of that, I have no doubt. This guy serves the one who reigns in hell.
Bump for later.
But I'd wager that our solons and the public talked common sense and had honest debates about the issues. We live in a strange world today with Orwellian doublespeak dialog, a failed press, moral relativism and officials and reporters flipflopping and denying their previous positions. It's Alice in Wonderland come true.
L
I’d lay no wager on that.
Well, as long as I have a rifle, I’ve still got a ‘vote’.
Victor Davis Hanson ping.
Yes it is; the worst of it is that it may be within the Republic.
It is certain that it will be Obamunists against patriots. They’ve made their intentions clear.
But as long as you have a rifle and the skill to use it, you’ve got a vote.
He’s doing it willfully, on purpose....right in front of the IDIOTS who voted for him.....and us, who knew this would happen. Makes me sick.
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