Posted on 12/21/2021 2:31:29 AM PST by Kaslin
If you want to know the pickle the Democrats are in as they scuttle their Build Back Better bill and pivot to the real red meat, the H.R.1 bill that imposes vote-by-mail nationwide, read this piece from the NY Sun about Ronald Reagan in 1981-82.
Beating stagflation required political heroics by President Reagan and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker. It was “a triumph of economic policy,” Robert Samuelson recently wrote. “Volcker imposed a ferocious credit squeeze, and Reagan supported this wildly unpopular policy.” Interest rates soared to 21 percent. Unemployment spiked at more than 10 percent. Bankruptcies ensued. “The triumph over inflation was bought at a huge personal and social cost,” Mr. Samuelson writes.
Probably, what Reagan and Volcker did in 1981 was one of the greatest acts of political courage in U.S. history, with Volcker having the cojones to apply the monetary brakes, and Reagan having the cojones to support him and take a 27-seat shellacking in the 1982 midterms.
Now, do you think that there is anyone in power right now likely to exhibit any cojones at all on monetary policy? resident Biden? Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell? Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen? Vice President Kamala Harris? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?
See, if I were president, I would have had an emergency meeting right there in the White House on January 20, 2021 with all the notables and I would have begun the meeting thus:
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
It was hard when Reagan did it.
It’s harder now. Our debt is through the roof — if interest rates went to 21%? It would kill us.
Mind you, I think the correct act of courage today is to default on our debt. Screw the Central Banks. Just declare a Jubilee and start over. No one would do it, but I think it is the right choice.
The right choice is to DownSize DC!
Both. Default AND downsize.
Default has consequences.
DownSize has benfits.
The only way to kill the DC Monster, is to starve it.
When Reagan’s policy went into effect the national debt had just hit 1 trillion. The Volker medicine is pretty much off the table due to the unfortunate reality of the $35 trillion hole we’re in.
I know Dems don’t care about silly laws, but wouldn’t taking voting control away from the states require an amendment to the constitution (which has a ranking in DC equal to toilet paper) ?
Yup.
Basically four choices:
1) Raise interest rates to 21% on our $35T debt. This is madness and cannot be done.
2) Payoff our $35T debt through confiscatory taxes. This is madness and cannot be done.
3) Downsize government drastically, abandoning all social spending, including Social Security. This is madness and cannot be done.
4) Default on the debt and start over. This is madness and cannot be done.
One of these impossible choices will be made.
None of the choices are good. Each will result in pain for some people who do not deserve pain. I say screw the Central Banks. Of all of the crazy impossible choices, it seems like it hits the people who most deserve to get hit.
They will do what desperate Governments usually do: Inflate the currency to shrink the debt. Hyperinflation is not here, yet, but it is a real possibility down the road.
5th choice: WAR. That’s how the Great Depression ended. It’s been 80 years. We’re due for a global war.
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