Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on January 22, 2011
President Obama has just named Jeff Immelt, the head of GE, as the new chairperson of his Whitehouse Jobs and Competitiveness Council. In doing so the President has aligned himself firmly in the camp of Wall Street and Global Corporate Interests and against the interests of the American worker. What’s good for GE shareholders is not necessarily what’s good for American workers. GE considers workers as input costs and it will build its factories where-ever it can get the best deal. GE has created far more jobs overseas in the last few years pursuing cheap labor than it has here at home. Immelt is already pushing the President for lower corporate taxes as key to his strategy to boost GE profits and the value of his stock options under the bogus guise of creating jobs. President Obama is so aligned with these interests that he has chosen someone to advise him with a clear conflict of interest, a person that continues to run a major corporation that was bailed out by the Fed and still has billions of dollars of yet to be repaid low interest loans backed by the Fed. President Obama launched this intiative with a trip to a GE alternative energy plant seeking billions of dollars in federal government grants. There the President said that the key to America’s future was being able to build things here and sell them in Shanghai. Really, the key to restoring the American dream is to make things so cheap here that they will buy them in Shanghai ahead of products made by their own workers working for slave wages?
No, the key to restoring the American dream and creating good paying jobs for millions of Americans is to end free-but-unfair trade that gives countries unfettered access to our markets without unfettered access to theirs. And, that allows workers making non-living wages to underprice American workers in American markets. These policies are creating a two-tier class of citizens in the U.S.; the haves and the have-nots. Its great that GE stock is going up if you already own a lot of it. But its not great if you are a 99′er unable to find work, or just greatful to find a job paying far less than the job you lost. There is actually no better example of the downside for workers created by our trade practices than the iphone and ipad, which were invented in the U.S., but are now manufactured in China where labor is much cheaper and where rare-earth-elements are no longer freely traded to the highest bidder.
The President just doesn’t get it. We are not going to restore the American dream via exports to Shanghai. We will restore the American dream if and when we invent things in Cupertino, California, we then make them in Indianapolis, Indiana, and we then sell them in Newark, New Jersey. We will restore the American dream when the housing market is fixed and people can get a mortgage on reasonable terms knowing their investment will not collapse in value two years later. We will restore the American dream when a middle class family can buy a home, buy a new car, take their kids on vacation, and still afford to send them to college. The President can afford to do that. Its time he focused on making it possible for the rest of us to be able to do that rather than focusing on how to make the haves have even more. China is experiencing tremendous economic growth for two reasons. First and foremost, China’s policies benefit China first. Secondly, American trade policies benefit China first. Its time we change that.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on January 20, 2011
We will not revive the economy and create the millions of jobs necessary to put the millions of 99′ers back to work until we fix the housing market. Housing is the key, and the housing market remains broken. There is still a deep backlog of foreclosures. New home construction remains at levels comparable to 50 years ago despite a big boost in population. Because the Zombie Banks are sitting on numerous unrecognized losses from housing, they remain extremely conservative in lending new money to small businesses and consumers. The best way to end the foreclosure backlog and stabilize home prices is to refinace every mortgage in America without an appraisal, without verification of income, and without a new title policy. This means every mortgage, a change in my perspective, whether it is current or not. I now believe the housing market is so broken that just refinancing current mortgages is insufficient. The mortgage lenders can take mortgages that are delinquent and roll the amount of money into the loan and hot the reset button. Refinancing delinquent mortgages will give those who have fallen behind the ability to catch up and start over. Additionally, those that are underwater can request an appraisal. If the appraisal is more than 10% below the mortgage amount, then that mortgage would be refinanced at 3% with the payment based on a 4% 30 year mortgatge and the difference going to principal enhanced principal reduction. Going forward, those who fail to pay the new mortgages will be foreclosed upon. This will give the whole housing market the breather from foreclosures that it needs to gain stability.
It is important to remember that all of these mortgages already exist and we will not be creating “new” problem loans. The federal government already guarantees about 90% of all mortgages already between its backing of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the VA, the FHA, the FDIC, the SIPC, and the Pension Guarantee Investment Corporation. The taxpayer will be taking on less risk by refinancing 100% of the outstanding mortgages because the entire market will improve versus the alternative of maintaining the status quo. The market will be able to provide the money to refinance these mortgages because everyone who takes advantage of this opportunity will have repaid their existing mortgage. Refinancing all mortgages will improve the cashflow of all mortgage holders allowing them to spend or invest in the rest of the economy. By ending the foreclosure and short sales plaguing the market it will once again make sense to pay full boat and invest in a brand new home spurring construction jobs.
The President is looking for ways to jump start the job market on the cheap. This is because he believes that the risk of entering a depression is over. He is wrong. The risk of entering a depression is over only because we have already entered one. He believes we are not in a depression and that the natural business boom-bust business cycle has entered a recovery phase that will soon right the economic ship and create millions of jobs. Refinancing all mortgages at 4% is a cheap idea, because the federal government can currently borrow money for 10 years at less than 3.5%. And, the Federal Reserve can invest in these mortgages if no one else will because their souce of funding is unlimited and their cost of funds is zero. Every home owner, whether they have a mortgage or not, will benefit from a stabilized home market. Even if you own your home outright you don’t benefit if your neighbor moves out and squatters move in to the vacant unkept property next door. Construction jobs are a very important part of modern-day economies. We cannot expect to lower unemployment significantly if we ignore good paying construction jobs and all of the industries and service businesses associated with new home construction.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on January 17, 2011
President Hu is rolling into the U.S. and the Obama Administration is rolling out the red carpet with a State Dinner. This is positive since the best course of action is cooperation between the U.S. and China on a host of issues, not all of which are economic. However, the reality is China is interested only in what’s in it for China. Therefore, it’s time for President Obama to get tough and tell President Hu, in private, that he now has a deadline to solve the huge imbalances in America’s trade deficit with China. He can either start by revaluing the yuan by 20%, or let it float freely on currency markets, or he can choose to substantially increase purchases of U.S. goods and services to balance out the trade deficit. It’s Hu’s choice, as the U.S. would not be dictating Chinese policy. President Obama would simply use the same tactics as China and declare that U.S. policy will be for the benefit first and foremost for the U.S. Were I President I would set a deadline of July 1, 2011, which is plenty of time for action on the part of China. The U.S. is in a jobs depression and we can no longer just give U.S. jobs away with nothing to show for it in return. If Hu fails to act, then President Obama can implement an across the board 30% tariff on all Chinese goods and services entering the U.S. and declare Chinese currency policies in violaion of the WTO. This will make both China and the global corporate interests that benefit from current policies furious. But it is necessary to restore the “American Dream” to the average American family.
Global corporate interests, like Apple Computer for example, benefit greatly from current policies at the expense of U.S. workers. While the ipod, iphone, and ipad are great American inventions, they are mainly manufactured in China. The reason of couse is cheap Chinese labor. Billionaires are popping up everywhere in China on the backs of cheap Chinese labor. And, billionaires are popping up in the U.S. without nary a thought of driving down the living standards of working Americans. Plainly put, what’s good for Apple and other global corporate interests and what’s good for China is not good for the rest of us.
Our unemployment rate of 9.4% is by now well known to be undercounting the truth of an unemployment rate closer to the mid-teens. We simply continue to drop people who want to work out of the labor force, even if they are healthy and in their 20′s. But less well known, and much less often discussed by the media, is the fact that the U.S. unemployment rate is a quantitative measure, not a qualitative one. If you get a temporary part-time job working for minimum wage and no benefits, then you are counted as a new hire and employed by U.S. government statisticians. Try raising kids and paying a mortgage on minimum wage, part-time. Or imagine yourself as a Chinese laborer working 80 hour weeks for a few hundred dollars a month and no benefits. This is the world current policy has driven us too. And current policy will continue to drive a world where workers are viewed as discardable input costs forced to compete across the globe with each other based on price, rather than viewed as people. If President Hu does’nt want to change his currency policy, then he could offer healthcare to the vast majority of Chinese citizens now forced to go without it. The U.S. is the leader in healthcare and China could help balance out the trade deficit by buying U.S. healthcare products and services. Afterall, when U.S. employers are forced to provide healthcare in 2014 it will only make U.S. workers even less competitive when we allow iphones to be sold in the U.S. made by workers with no healthcare benefits. The current path we are on is a path to a third-world entire world without a middle-class. Where will the iphone buyers come from then?
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on January 8, 2011
The insane have taken over the asylum. With pitch-forks in hand the mob of the masses symbolized by the Tea Party has cowered Washington into promising no more bail-outs. The coup-de-grace was yesterday’s testimony by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that the Federal Reserve has no intention of bailing-out state and municipal governments. He said it was a fiscal issue and will be left in the hands of Congress. The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act has tied the Fed’s hands in bailing-out just about anybody according to Bernanke. I will not lose sleep over this even though we desperately need a bail-out mechanism in Washington. Believe me, when the Fed sees the whites of their eyes they will blink. Just act former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who proudly made a moral example of Lehman Brothers only to be forced onto one knee begging Nancy Pelosi not to let the whole financial system crash, because of his unspoken error. But make no mistake, it was TARP, yes the bank bail-out bill, that left us in a mere depression rather than utter anarchy. So Ben is letting us know nothing will be done until he too is forced one kneel. The Congress is expressing no appetite to further aid the states.
What this means is the depression will roll on and on despite the claims it is over, and despite the opinions of analysts reported as fact that a significant Christmas selling season and job creation environment arrived. Target and the unemployment report exposed the false-hood of such claims. Leaving the states to fend for themselves means leaving education as priority number 99 for the U.S. We might as well burn books and forbid reading and independent thinking.
There is no one on the national stage willing to give a clear and coherent explanation of where we have been, why we have been there, and how we can fix the economic mess we are in. So the people are left to resort to voodoo economics. They are left to fix that which they don’t understand on their own. Hence, they are looking for witches to drown and stone. Sadly, while President Obama is not the One, I do not see the One out their in the arena. Without a chance to have a real leader it is up to us to do what we can. I plan on pressing two issues this year that hopefully will gain traction. The first is to refinance every mortgage that can be brought current at 4% without an appraisal and without income verification. The second is to federalize Medicaid. These two simple steps will do more to aid the economy than anything else. And, with the right persuasion they have a chance to get passed. Refinancing every mortgage can stabilize the housing market. Federalizing Medicaid can be sold as a state’s rights issue. More on those two later.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 19, 2010
The biggest error those advocating Austrian Economic policies like austerity make is that it doesn’t work in a modern economy for a national government. It sounds like common sense on the surface, but in fact it makes no sense at all. The advocates of the Austrian School of economics argue that the federal government needs to live within its means and cut spending to match revenues, just like Mom and Pop have to sit around the kitchen table and make cuts to live within their means. Making an argument that seems to make sense on the surface doesn’t mean it is in fact sensical. People can easily understand and relate to the analogy that if they cut spending they will reduce their borrowings, and if they cut spending enough they can get into the position where they are actually reducing their debts. Most family incomes are fairly fixed rather than variable. But modern economies are not constructed based on the dreams of libertarians. Modern states have social safety nets. As unemployment rises and tax revenues decline the costs of the social safety net actually rises. If in response to the economic downturn a national government makes spending cuts of its own, then it actually raises unemployment higher thereby further eroding tax revenues and increasing the number of people to be added to the social safety net. Mom and Pop don’t see their income decrease and their expenses increase when they cut spending whereas national governments of modern economies do. To argue for austerity is to argue for an end to the social safety net. While many advocates of Austrian Economis are arguing for just that, they fail to mention to Mom and Pop that they too will probably wind up unemployed based on the highly signficant ensuing drop in economic demand when the social safety net ends. And, since the debts remain constant, it becomes more and more difficult to payoff debts when the economy contracts rather than grows.
Ireland is being forced to encounter just such a reality right now. One would think that taking tough measures would improve their credit rating and lower their borrowing costs. However, in a paradox not explained by the Austrian Economists Irish debt has been downgraded and Irish borrowing costs have risen. This is because the markets’ recognize that the more Ireland cuts spending the more liabilities wind up on the Irish governments balance sheet. The solution to Ireland solving its debt problems is via growth, not austerity.
Mom and Pop could probably understand Keynsean Economics better if they understood it as the way to run a business rather than as a way to run a household. In business the old axiom is it takes money to make money. In business it is O.K. if expenses are rising as long as sales are rising just as fast, or faster. The key to a successful business is creating strategies to create demand. Often times these strategies include increasing spending to increase growth and increasing borrowing to pay for it. National governments in modern economies need to be run like businesses where spending can increase revenues, as opposed to being run like households where increased spending doesn’t increase revenues.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 12, 2010
Bernie Sanders is so right, yet so wrong, on how to help the unemployed. There can be no doubt Senator Sander’s heart is too big, not too small. His filibuster was brilliant and had me applauding. However, raising taxes on the rich to support social services is pre-depression thinking and unfortunately Senator Sanders, like most of our Washington leaders, is fighting the last war, which is now the wrong war. We have an almost $1.5 trillion annual deficit because of a lack of demand resulting in massive unemployment. Taxing the rich another $70 billion or so isn’t going to materially change the federal government’s finances, and it isn’t going to help the unemployed. The unemployed need jobs, period, end of story. Everything that helps to create jobs needs to be on the table. The only saving grace from the last couple of weeks is we have confirmed that few in Washington are really serious about deficit reduction. They just want to use the debt and the deficit as a tool to beat back the oppositions proposals and advance their own. Sorry Senator Sanders and Rush Limbaugh, but a gridlocked stalemate is not in the country’s best interests.
President Obama should have driven a much harder bargain with Republicans by dangling the carrot of a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts combined with an elimination of the estate tax. Imagine what he could have gotten if he gave Republicans their Christmas wish list. For starters, he could have gotten an agreement to maintain extended unemployment benefits until the official unemployment rate is below 7% for an average of 90 days. You want permanent tax cuts, I need unemployment insurance as long as necessary rather than for just one year. He also could have negotiated a 6.2% payroll tax cut until the unemployment rate is below 7% for an average of 90 days, rather than just the 2% he negotiated. He could also have negotiated a substantial infrastructure bill focused on roads, bridges, and sewer and water lines. He could have added a federalization of Medicaid benefits, though that idea has yet to perculate in Washington. He also could have included a major fix of the housing market. Yes he traded off the world’s biggest bargaining chip for $24 worth of trinkets. The President went minimally in the right direction for the right reasons. Senator Sanders is suggesting he head in the wrong direction, for the right reasons. Now is not the time to hold fast to your side of the debates of the past, now is the time to cut big deals and get the country moving again.
The deal the President cut is far better than gridlock, but it will not move the needle on unemployment as he and his advisors believe. For starters there is nothing in the deal to solve the housing debacle. Despite the rhetoric no one is getting a cut in their income tax rates in 2011, they will be getting the same rates as they paid in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003. Plus, people were already receiving extended unemployment benefits in 2009 and 2010. How can extending existing 2009 and 2010 tax and unemployment policy in 2011 produce a meaningful change in the almost 10% official unemployment rate? The answer is it can’t. And after the summer the aid to the states from the original stimulus bill will be gone. In Texas, they are now talking about a $28 billion two year budget shortfall and plan to lay off elementary school teachers ala most other states. Much more is needed, but at least the lightbulb has finally been turned on in the Whitehouse.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 5, 2010
We are witnessing the last throes of the idolatry of hard money. The era of hard money officially ended when the Federal Reserve correctly decided we needed to print our way back to prosperity. Yet few have noted the end of the era, and fewer still understand its implications, because of the wailing and knashing of teeth from the ardent disciples of hard money. They scream hyperinflation and want to back the currency with gold. They are confused with the concept that the federal government’s dollar resources are not finite, but infinite. Hence, they fear deficit spending and federal debt despite the impossibility of the federal government ever defaulting on debts it owes in dollars. Many mistakenly believe if the federal government prints money it increases rather than decreases the national debt. Hard money religion is our historical heritage, but it is not our future, and is no longer even our present. The sooner we can come to terms with the end of the hard money era, then the sooner we will be able to heal our self-inflicited fiscal wounds with the new tools of the soft money era. The hard money idolatrists are taking us down the austerity path that will break our society apart. Society will come to its senses and exile the idolatrist to the scrap heap of history. Ireland is about to do so because they have been asked to absorb too much pain for someone else’s gain. It is only a matter of when we do the same here. Since our current political leadership is comprised mostly of hard money idolatrists, including multiple priests of the religion, it will take time for change to come.
Hawaii has cut 17 school days to save money. Yet the state has the buildings and the books, the parents want the kids to go, and the teachers want to come and teach. How can we be sitting in the twenty first century and everyone agree we need something we already have the resources for and yet we throw up our hands and say we can’t do it? The reason is the idolatry of hard money and the mistaken belief that dollars are a finite resource for the federal government. All Congress has to do is pass another stimulus bill to send aid to the states, and these problems will be solved. Yet hard money idolatry has us staring at the print button and saying we dare not touch it. Now we are staring at the state of Arizona cutting Medicaid patients out of transplant programs to save money. A 32 year-old father in need of a liver transplant has been removed from the waiting list because he is poor and couldn’t show up at the hospital with $200,000 in cash. The hospital and the doctors are there, yet access is denied. Again, federalising Medicaid would end this nonsensical atrocity.
Fortunately for us many of the priests of hard money who are railing against debts and deficits and runaway spending, such as our President and most of our Republican and Democrat Senators and Congressman, are actually false prophets and charlatans. As politicians, they are willing to tell us anything to maintain their own base of power and the perks that come with it. Otherwise, we would not be looking at an all-but-certain extension of all the tax cuts enacted by both President Bush and President Obama along with an extension of unpaid for unemployment benefits in the midst of trillion dollar deficits. Most of these so-called deficit hawks are not true believers. They simply manipulate the beliefs of others to gain votes. When the polls change, they will change with the polls. This is actually our saving grace. All it will take to bring about true change is to change public opinion. And as President Obama has found out, the public can change opinion fast.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on November 23, 2010
Shockingly, the State of Texas is placing pulling out of Medicaid as agenda item number one in its attemtps to close a projected $25 billion two year budget shortfall. At first this seemed like just a back-bencher idea. But Governor Rick Perry has endorsed pulling out of Medicaid as a legitimate way to help close the budget gap. Medicaid will spend $24.7 billion in Texas in fiscal year 2011. The federal government will cover $16.6 billion and the state will cover the rest. Governor Perry claims they can save both the state and the federal government money and do more with much, much less funding. This is nothing short of libertarian ideology gone wild. First and foremost it is impossible to do more with that much less. Second, because Hospital Emergancy Rooms cannot refuse service based on the ability to pay a significant cost will be shifted to hospital budgets. County hospitals will require increased local tax support. Third, over one million Texans work in healthcare. The states unemployment rate will rise substantially and its tax revenues will decrease if this plan is enacted. However, the state will have to make dramatic cuts in public K-12 education if it is unable to find cuts in Medicaid. The math simply doesn’t allow Texas to balance its budget, leave Medicaid off the table, leave tax increases off the table, and leave K-12 education off the table. While libertarian ideology is making Medicaid a wedge issue in Texas, it is a budget wedge issue in almost all of the states. The states are broke and significant cuts are coming.
The simple solution is to federalise Medicaid. The federal government should absorb all of the costs of administering the program. Since the federal government doesn’t have to have a balanced budget it can continue the program even during severe economic downturns like the one we currently find ourselves in. The poor will continue to receive quality healthcare. The only growth area of the economy, healthcare, will not be thrown into an instant depression as would happen if multiple states opt out of Medicaid to balance bleeding budgets. And children in first grade will not be crammed into larger and larger classrooms where learning takes a back seat to baby sitting. Importantly, federalising Medicaid doesn’t increase overall government spending or taxation. It simply shifts the states existing burden to the federal government which mandated Medicaid.
All of this is the unintended consequence of a poorly constructed Health Care Plan rushed through on a party-line vote by the Whitehouse. The President should step forward and show leadership. The Health Care plan has to be fixed. But the political Rubics Cube of satisfying the left, the right, and the middle on this issue may be beyond the political skills of the best ploiticians, no less the current Hooveresque Whitehouse. Still the President should place this issue on the table. He should think big, not small.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on November 20, 2010
We are dealt a political hand where it will be very difficult to stimululate the economy with new federal spending initiatives. But it is still politically possible to stimulute the economy with tax cuts. The best possible tax cutting jobs bill would be a payroll tax holiday for both the employee and the employer on the first $50,000 of wages earned. This would give anyone making over $50,000 a year over $300 in additional take home pay thereby increasing consumer spending. Increased consumer demand will increase jobs. It would also lower annual compensation costs for employers reducing lay-offs and encouraging hiring. The cost would be about $400 billion per year, or $800 billion over a two year period. However, lower costs and increased demand for employers will lead to higher profits and ergo higher tax revenues off-setting some of the costs. By actually saving and creating jobs the costs will also be offset by higher income tax revenues from the expanded workforce. Additionally, more hiring will lead to fewer unemployment checks, fewer food stamp cards, and less social safety-net spending on both the state and federal level. State will also benefit from increased sale tax and income tax revenues. Since it is a temporary tax-cut it should be acceptable to conservatives opposed to spending and eager to reduce taxes. Since the benefits go disproportionately to the poor and middle class it should satisfy progressives. Effectively this would provide the economy with a desperately needed two year second stimulus package.
Politically it is a win-win for everyone accept true deficit hawks. However, there really aren’t that many “true” deficit hawks. There are many many people who want less regulation and a lowered tax burden. Few people would pass up a tax break in favor of returning the money to the Treasury to lower the national debt. It is a potentially bi-partisan bill that accomplishes the aims of both political parties.
President Obama should propose a substantial two year payroll tax holiday and a two year extension of extended unemployment benefits in exchange for making permanent all of the Bush era tax cuts. In reality the legislation will simply continue existing tax rates with a sunset date. There is no such thing as a perpetual and permanent anything coming from Washington. The term permanent is simply rhetoric. Congress will retain the power to raise or lower tax rates in the future. Whether the President is bold enough to put such a plan on the table remains to be seen. He has the upper hand, he just may not know it. All he has to do is agree to extend all of the tax cuts without a sunset date and he can attach a payroll tax holiday and extended unemployment benefits. The Republicans would never say no to such a proposal. Not only would their majority be gone in 2012, so might the whole Republican party. However, my confidence in President Obama playing well the hand he has been dealt is not high.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on November 11, 2010
Well, it’s looking like 60% of the American population is wrong. Those that believe cuts in government spending will lead to more private sector jobs have to take a good look at Cisco. The giant networking company warned that sales will miss forecasts because of a dramtic drop in orders from austerity crazed European governments and U.S. states forced to balance revenue starved budgets. Simply put, when governments order technology products they are creating private sector jobs. When governments build roads, bridges, and buildings they are creating private sector jobs. When they increase healthcare spending they are creating private sector jobs. We have yet to see the real impact of the cuts in private sector jobs in the U.S. because we still have enhanced federal spending from the stimulus bill. The rubber will meet the road when that stops in 2011. In my own state of Texas the two year budget looks to be $25 billion short of revenue. Since Governor Perry dreams of a Presidential run tax increases are off the table. Yesterday, local school districts were told to brace for multi-million dollar cuts per district in state spending for K-12 education starting with the 2011-2012 school year. There are over 1,100 school districts in Texas. Everything is going to get cut. These cuts will fall hardest on capital expenditures like technology and construction projects.
Thankfully the Federal Reserve has the foresight to realize we are up the creek without a fiscal paddle and they plan to print money to help shore-up the gap. They need to print 10 times more than the $600 billion they started with. My thinking is this is just the ante and the Fed will push all in before this is over. The unknown question is will liquidity trump falling demand in regards to asset prices. While the initial reaction was to bump assets prices up, the Cisco news clearly thumped it back.
Meanwhile, the inept Obama economic team continues to push mumbo jumbo proposals to restore the economy. The President’s new head of the Council of Economic Advisors Dr. Goolsbee believes the U.S. can grow exports from $1.5 billion to $3 billion by 2014. By 2014, is he out of his mind! Does he not see European austerity mania and Asian protectionism as insurmountable obstacles? Did he not see the Dream Liner fire from the Whitehouse cocoon plaguing our largest exporter Boeing? The President is in Asia telling everyone they cannot count on U.S. consumers borrowing money to spend. This means he believes in the same liquidationsist Austerian School of economics practiced by Herbert Hoover and others that led to abject failure in the past. Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Sadly, a confused American populace believes the same thing because the case for Keynsean spending is being defended by an inept Whitehouse that doesn’t even believe it themselves. Somewhere in America a champion needs to rise up and preach a different economic gospel than the one the Whitehouse is force-feeding us.
