Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on October 20, 2009
The Whitehouse needs to stop defending the stimulus plan and come forward immediately with a big and bold job creation plan. The one part of the stimulus plan that most people agreed would create new jobs was fast forwarding funding for shovel ready infrastructure jobs. Well don’t hold your breath. Proof has just emerged that the stimulus plan is not only failing to create infrastructure jobs as promised; it is now failing to save even previously budgeted infrastructure jobs. A few days ago federal and state transportation officials told local planners in Texas they would need to significantly restrict their previously budgeted spending on roads and bridges for the next two years. In fact, the only money available for state and federal highways is whatever funds local transportation authorities have received directly from the stimulus plan, and nothing else. The Waco Tribune Herald quoted Waco MPO director Chris Evilia as saying “If it’s not economic stimulus, it’s pretty much a no go for the next two years.” She described the turn of events as a “complete meltdown.” The Waco area is slated to receive $7.2 million from the stimulus plan for roads and planned to use the money for a needed overpass on highway 6. Still, the stimulus money will not be diverted to higher prioritized projects but to routine road maintenance. Without stimulus money the area already planned to widen parts of I-35 and to build an overpass on highway 84. Those two top priority projects will now have to wait for future funding, since the expected annual road money is no longer coming.
We are in a federal and state funding crisis due to a lack of tax receipts because of the economic crisis. Jobs widening I-35 that would have existed anyway without the stimulus plan will now not exist even with the stimulus plan. It is simply stunning things are unraveling so fast at the federal and state level. It is imperative the Whitehouse put together an emergency spending bill to restore fully all budgeted transportation funds without using funds from the stimulus plan to cover the normal budget. The word stimulus means an extra spark. It does not mean replacement money.
There is no doubt we need much higher levels of federal spending to stabilize the economy. There is no doubt the Federal Reserve needs to print a lot more money. What is doubtful and what is an open question is whether or not President Obama has the wisdom and the courage to stand in front of the American people and tell them the economic crisis is proving to be more severe than he and his advisers realized. He must come forward with a one trillion dollar job creation program as a minimum down payment if he wants to see unemployment go down. It is also doubtful whether or not Fed Chairman Bernanke will push through another round of quantitative easing at the Fed’s next meeting. The economic crisis will not end until the President is willing to use all of his political capital on creating jobs.
I need to offer a mea culpa and a retraction. Earlier I attempted to coin the phrase the “Great Unraveling” as a term to describe how the economic dominoes are continuing to fall into each other causing more and more economic losses. The recent cut in highway funds is a perfect example of why we are in a depression and why it is not close to being over. However, it has been brought to my attention that Paul Krugman published a book in 2003 titled The Great Unraveling: Losing our Way in a New Century, which is a collection of his New York Times columns railing against President Bush’s economic policies. At least I have seen Professor Krugman forced to issue retractions of his own.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on October 14, 2009
It may happen as soon as tomorrow. The core rate for CPI includes everything except for volatile food and energy prices. Over the last 12 months the overall CPI rate has declined by 1.5%, primarily due to a pullback in food and energy prices. But for the most part the Core CPI rate has risen slightly month after month despite rampant deflation. Over the last year the CPI has calculated that rents and owner’ equivalent rents (the economist’s substitute for home prices) have risen by an annualized rate of 1.8%. It is mindboggling that the federal government’s statisticians have been using the cost of renting shelter as a substitute for actually buying a house. Everyone knows home prices have dropped dramatically during the last 2 years. The reason the Core CPI rate is about to turn negative is rents are now rapidly falling throughout the U.S. Rent and owner’ equivalent rent combined account for 30% of the overall CPI calculation. Importantly, they account for 40% of the Core CPI calculation. Most economists and investors pay much closer attention to the core rate than to the overall rate due to the volatility of food and energy prices. This summer apartment vacancies reached 7.8%. Landlords are forced to lower prices to attract tenants. Once the Core CPI rate turns negative it will confirm the U.S. is in a deflationary spiral brought on by the credit crisis.
The CPI rate is built into many contracts and negotiations in the U.S. Most employers’ base raises for employees on a cost of living adjustment, plus potentially something extra for merit. With the Core CPI rate trending negative the only raises given to U.S. workers will be for merit. Stagnant and potentially falling wages in the U.S. will only lead to lower prices as consumers and businesses are strapped with excessive debts. They need the forces of inflation to raise their incomes and the prices of their assets to service their debts. This year people on Social Security did not receive their usual annual cost of living raise. Less income will lead to lower top line revenues for businesses. This will mean cost cutting will be the only way maintain or grow profits. In the U.S. cost cutting for businesses is code for more layoffs. Getting out of this deflationary spiral will be very difficult because of the way incomes in the U.S. are tied to the CPI rate.
The Fed is currently pushing on a string and has been unable to get the Zombie banks to increase lending. The only way to fight deflationary expectations is for the Federal Reserve to print a lot more money. Yet some members of the Fed would like to exit their quantitative easing program believing the economy is recovering and inflation is around the corner. These attitudes should change once the Core CPI rate confirms deflation. The good news is the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed that some members of the Fed are still open to upping the quantitative easing program.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on October 11, 2009
The Whitehouse and Congress are looking at the looming 2010 elections in conjunction with the rising unemployment rate and are beginning to sweat. The realization has hit home that rhetoric alone cannot gloss over the fact that the stimulus bill has failed to create jobs and stem the rise in the unemployment rate as promised. A new package of measures to stop the nation from hemorrhaging jobs is about to be on the table. However, constraining a truly transformative job creation bill will be an emphasis to limit increases to the federal budget deficit. Therefore, whatever emerges from Congress will be limited and targeted. It will also be designed to be politically palatable to independents that will prove to be pivotal in choosing our next Congress in 2010. While I believe that we should ignore increases in the federal deficit and should print money to repurchase most of our outstanding U.S. Treasury bonds, the political reality is the deficit hawks will be able to control and limit the size of the next round of federal job creation stimulus. Hence, we must get the maximum bang for the job creation buck. The question Congress and the country should be asking is which comes first – demand for goods and services, or jobs? Most mistakenly believe that the key to re-igniting demand is job creation. The simple premise is people will spend if they have a job. But in my mind they are getting the cart before the horse. Businesses do not need incentives to hire workers they do not need. Businesses will hire workers when they see top line revenue growth and their existing workforce unable to keep up with demand.
One of the ideas rising to the top of the heap in Congress is a job creation tax credit worth $3,000 to $5,000 depending on the wages for the new job. This idea is deemed palatable to a broad cross section of the electorate. Yet, I do not know of any business person that will spend $36,000 to create a job they don’t need just to save $3,600 on their income taxes. The tax credit will wind up as a windfall going to the few businesses that are seeing top line revenue growth and already need more workers. This ineffective job creation tax credit idea will consume most of the stimulus money on the table and will not solve our unemployment crisis.
If the federal government is going to spend money to create jobs, let’s let the government create the jobs it knows how to create best – government jobs. In the September unemployment report we lost over 50,000 full time government jobs, mostly at the state and local level. Those lost paychecks count just as much as lost private sector paychecks when you own the local restaurant, drycleaners, or community bank. This year over 40,000 teachers were pink slipped and not returned to the classroom. We should start by spending money to hire these teachers back. In my community of Waco, Texas, we need to expand I-35 in the northern part of the county and we need to build an overpass on Highway 84 where a new intermediate school is being built. But there are only funds to choose one of the shovel ready projects. If the federal government would increase it’s spending on the type of infrastructure projects the government normally spends money on, then private sector jobs would be created to build the overpass that seems to be out of the running for funding. We will get the most bang for the buck if the federal government focuses on doing what it does best. To really create jobs and significantly lower the unemployment rate, the Federal Reserve will need to print a lot of money and the Whitehouse will need to come forward with a massive Marshal style Plan for job creation. A couple of hundred billion dollars isn’t going to significantly lower the unemployment rate. Perhaps the President will get the message to push all in on the economy in 2011 when the 2012 election looms even larger for the Whitehouse and the unemployment rate is much higher than it is now.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on September 1, 2009
The official U-6 unemployment rate is 16.2%. The official U-3 unemployment rate is 9.4%. After the last unemployment report I pointed out that the Bureau of Labor Statistics made an adjustment and removed approximately 1 million people from the labor force. Had this not occurred the official U-3 unemployment rate would be 10%, and not 9.4%. It turns out the statisticians have been systematically tossing Americans out of the official labor force for the last year. The civilian non-institutional population (not-in-prison) population has risen from 233,864,000 in July of 2008 to 235,870,000 in July of 2009. Yet the BLS statisticians claim those seeking employment has fallen from 156,300,000 to 154,504,000. Basically, the population of those over the age of 16 and not in prison has risen by 2 million people and magically those seeking employment has fallen by almost 2 million. The participation rate in the labor force is now calculated to be only 59.4%, down from 62.9% at the start of 2008. Are we to believe that the significant losses in the stock and bond markets over the last 18 months have caused 2 million extra people to retire due to increases in wealth? Anecdotally we know that many people that retired in the last few years have re-entered the workforce due to wealth destruction. Without this sleight of hand the official U-3 unemployment rate would be 11%, not 9.4%. Are the American people aware of this? Are members of Congress aware of this? Is President Obama aware of this? Shouldn’t this be the lead story on the ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NBC nightly news shows?
If American people realized the official unemployment rate should be quoted as a minimum of 11%, then they would be demanding action. The kind of action we are not getting out of Washington. The unemployment crisis is particularly acute amongst people in their 20’s, many with college educations. This is why over 1 in 8 mortgages in America are 30 days or more past due. This is why the stress test designed to keep the ZOMBIE BANKS alive is a joke. This is why tax revenues at the federal, state, and local levels are collapsing.
Washington needs a wake-up call. Hello Washington, is anyone up their listening? It seems Washingtonians are more interested in esoteric theories like fiscal discipline, balancing the federal budget, moral hazard, no more bail-outs, healthcare reform, global warming, and positioning for the 2010 elections than they are about sitting down and solving the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Where are our statesmen? Where are our leaders that care more about our people than they do about their own party and their own chances for re-election? We need massive quantitative easing. We need a “bad bank” to absorb the toxic assets and end the ZOMBIE status of most of our largest lenders. We need to open up credit for homes and autos to people with credit scores lower than arbitrary lines like 700. We need to give significant federal aid to our states. And we need a serious stimulus program for our people, such as lowering the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare. We need economic shock and awe Washington….WAKE-UP!
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on August 23, 2009
Christina Romer, the chairperson of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, says “Deficits do matter.” “No one believes that more than the president.” First we lost the Fed this week and now we lose the President. For those wondering how to interpret these comments let me translate. Ms. Romer is saying the President cares more about satisfying the bond vigilantes in China and on Wall Street than he does about whether or not the average American keeps their job or their home. First the Fed thinks keeping Zombie Banks that don’t go under, but don’t lend either, will eventually work even though it didn’t work in Japan. Now the President is assuring the balanced budget hawks the federal government is prepared to either raise taxes or slash spending in the middle of the greatest downturn since The Great Depression. Perhaps he can channel the ghosts of Herbert Hoover and FDR to find out that if they had a chance to do it all over again the last thing they would have done is worry about the deficits until the economy was strong enough to stand on its own. We are still hemorrhaging jobs and we have significant deflation. Washington needs a real stimulus plan, needs to fix the broken credit markets, and needs to print a lot more money. But it is obvious that this will not be happening anytime soon. Hence, the “Great Unraveling” will continue unabated.
The “Great Unraveling” is simply the process of the economic dominoes falling into each other one by one. A person loses their job, loses their home, and quits spending money at the local clothing store and restaurant. The local clothing store and restaurant go out of business and the owners default on their mortgages. These dominoes will continue to fall into each other until something stops them. In the Great Depression the domino stopper was World War II. In the Panic of 1873 the domino stopper was time. In the Japanese Lost Decade the dominos have not stopped falling into each other even though their crisis started 20 years ago. Do you know a family member or close friend without a job? Is there a home in your neighborhood that is vacant? Do you see local businesses closing their doors? These are the economic dominos that represent the “Great Unraveling.” That is what a debt-induced deflationary depression is all about. Those trapped in post World War II inflationary boom bust cycle thinking erroneously believe that the dominos will reverse on their on. They won’t.
Consider that we will enter September with more people unemployed than at anytime since the crisis began. Consider that we will enter September with more people delinquent on their mortgages than at time since the crisis began. Consider that those that lost their homes already and those that have been out of work for more than a year are not counted in these statistics. Consider that state and local governments enter September with lower spending levels and higher taxes than they entered last September. Consider that most for profit and non-profit institutions enter September with small budgets than they entered last September. We enter September weaker, not stronger. The consumer has shown no signs of opening their wallet, except for those with clunkers to unload. Homebuyers are scarce, except for first time homebuyers taking advantage of the $8,000 tax credit. To balance the budget the federal government has to end the few kernels of stimulus spending that have actually been working. However, I would like to suggest a budget cut that will have overwhelming bipartisan support amongst the American people. Until the unemployment rate is back under 8% as promised, let the President, every senior member of his Administration, and every member of Congress take a 50% pay-cut. We need to see an end to the “let them eat cake” policies Washington is sending us.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on August 19, 2009
In today’s New York Times, Warren Buffet wrote an Op-Ed saying that the federal budget deficit was too high in relation to the country’s economy and is unsustainable. He made an excellent point that the world is only in a position to naturally invest about $900 billion per year in U.S. Treasuries from a combination of growing U.S. savings and growing foreign reserve surpluses from our key trading partners. He said that the $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit is twice as much as the readily available capital to finance the debt. He then warns about the dangers of printing money to cover the deficit claiming it will kick off high rates of inflation and says the U.S. doesn’t want to risk becoming a banana republic. He states we risk collapsing the currency if we print too much money, or if we allow our debt to GDP ratio to continue to rapidly climb beyond the 56% ratio it is expected to reach by the end of the year. Warren concedes Japan and Italy have much higher debt to GDP ratios than the U.S. does, but we dare not test the upper limit.
The only problem with Warren’s quaint editorial is the facts do not support his fears. If President Obama follows Buffet’s advice he will plunge the world into economic Armageddon. What will happen to the economy if the federal government stops spending money? Gone will be extended unemployment benefits and support for Medicaid payments to the states. Gone will be much of the defense budget at a time we are fighting on two fronts. Or, gone will be Medicare and Social Security. If we continue to borrow our debt to GDP ratio will grow, as will our interest payments on the debt. But Italy and France have a debt to GDP ratio of over 100%. Germany’s is over 80%. Japan has a debt to GDP ratio of over 200% and has been printing money for years. The British pound has rallied 20% against other currencies in the last 6 months and Britain is printing more money compared to its GDP than any country in the world other than Zimbabwe. Britain also has a debt to GDP ratio over 100%. Yet these are the currencies Mr. Buffet fears the world will flee to. These facts were not part of Mr. Buffet’s Op-Ed.
Compare Mr Buffet’s position with that of Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, who is the equivalent of our Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. It was just revealed that the normally hawkish Governor King wanted to increase the last round of quantitative easing in Britain by 75 million pounds, rather than by the 50 million pounds the board voted for. The only other times Governor King was voted down he wanted to raise rates more than the committee in both 2005 and 2007. So the question in my mind is what has turned the usually hawkish Governor King in the world’s most dovish central banker? I have a feeling he knows where the bodies are buried and he sees the deflationary spiral the world has entered. One of these men is seeking to lead the world down the wrong economic path. The worshippers of the god of inflation can worship at Mr. Buffet’s altar all they want. But I’m following the path of Governor King. Deflation is the global threat and it is gaining a foot-hold in all of the major economies of the world. In a world without wage pressures, declining demand, and massive excess capacity in every industry, those seeing inflation are seeing a mirage.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on August 13, 2009
Don’t ask me because I don’t know the answer. For many years now the U.S. consumer has been the source of final demand and has driven the global economy forward. Because of the collapse of available consumer credit, the U.S. consumer has reigned in their spending as evidenced by today’s disappointing retail sales report. Why some were surprised that rising unemployment and restricted access to credit led to lower retail sales is the real mystery. They explain the aberration in their mind away by guessing that since 200,000 people purchased a clunker in the last week of July that caused 300,000,000 people to close their wallets for the whole month. Who are these people that get passed off to us as experts? Today it was also reported that the Euro-zone economy contracted less than expected and that France and Germany actually had a small amount of positive economic growth in the second quarter. But this growth came from the calculations of modern alchemists known as economists. Because imports dropped faster than exports fell in both countries, the alchemists claim they are now growing. Countries with declining imports are buying less from others because they have weak economies. In no way are they positioned to drive global growth going forward. Many will claim China is prepared to drive global growth forward. China’s has a production oriented economy that is dependent on selling goods to the West. The West is buying less and less. China calculates its economic growth based on production and not based on final demand. So if China builds something nobody wants and sticks it in a warehouse they claim positive growth. If China has such a strong economy why are their imports falling too?
My concerted opinion remains that the key to restoring global economic growth relies heavily on reviving the spendthrift U.S. consumer. With excess debt levels and deflation prevalent in the U.S. and the rest of the world, the only way to restore the U.S. consumer is for the Fed to pursue a much more aggressive policy of quantitative easing. A step they failed to take at yesterday’s meeting. According to the economic data the U.S. economy was still declining in July. The predictions that the recession has ended by some alchemists and the consensus of the alchemists that the U.S. will see positive economic growth in the second half of 2009 looks to be in jeopardy right now. The problem is these alchemists continue to talk about how long past post World War II recessions lasted and base their forecasts on the false assumption that we remain in the inflationary growth economy that defined the first 62 years of the post-war period. Those days ended in August of 2007 and we have returned to a debt-induced deflationary depression.
Fortunately, the Fed with at least three blind mice as voting members did not signal an end to further shots of quantitative easing despite wide spread media reports to the contrary. What the timid Fed did was they punted the ball to the next meeting to make a final decision. Hopefully they can open their eyes and see the economic truth between now and then.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on August 11, 2009
The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate; economic growth and price stability. There can be little question that the economy would benefit if the Federal Reserve increased its program of quantitative easing (printing money) at tomorrow’s meeting. But what the markets and the media are missing is that the Federal Reserve needs to print more money to maintain price stability. Price stability requires limiting the amount of inflation or deflation that impacts the purchasing power of a dollar for a domestic U.S. consumer. This should not be confused with whether the value of the dollar is rising or falling versus other currencies like the euro, the pound, or the yen. Printing money to maintain price stability will seem counter-intuitive to most observers of the markets and the economy. The knee-jerk response is usually that if the Fed prints more money we will eventually have hyper-inflation. The Federal Reserve needs to ignore the voices of ignorance at tomorrow’s meeting and follow the lead of the Bank of England and print more money, and lots of it. The reason is the U.S. economy is experiencing levels of deflation that are approaching the levels of deflation last seen in the early 1930’s during the Great Depression. Most people have missed this fact due to the use of owners’ equivalent rent in the CPI index, which dramatically understates the decline in home prices in the U.S.
The official CPI numbers state that prices fell 1.4% in the last 12 months in the U.S. The CPI currently uses owners’ equivalent rent to calculate the price of home ownership. Owner’s equivalent rent accounts for over 23% of the CPI Index. In the last 12 months this calculation has risen 1.9% and has contributed a positive .4% to annual CPI. Say WHAT? That’s right; the official CPI statistics calculate that it is more expensive to purchase a home today than it was 12 months ago in the U.S. An alternative measure of home prices is the Case/Shiller index. This index has fallen over 17% in the last 12 months and much more accurately captures the trend of the costs of purchasing a home for a U.S. consumer. If the CPI used changes in home prices in the CPI index rather than owners’ equivalent rents, then the positive .4% housing contributed to CPI in the last 12 months would actually have been a negative detraction of approximately 3.9%. This means the real rate of deflation in the U.S. over the last 12 months is 5.7%, not 1.4%. If our CPI were reported as minus 5.7% over the last 12 months, then Washington would be much more concerned about deflation.
From 1929 to 1933 the U.S. economy experienced mid single digit deflation for 4 years in a row. But the official CPI Index in the 1930’s used home prices to calculate the cost of purchasing a home for a consumer, not owner’s equivalent rent. The federal government changed the calculation for the cost of homeownership in the CPI Index in January of 1983. We will find out tomorrow if the Fed understands that deflation over the last 12 months is tracking the levels of deflation of the Great Depression. If they get it they will surprise the markets and increase the level of their quantitative easing program. If they don’t get it, then they will stand pat. The Obama Administration has already checked out on further assistance to the economy in the near term. Mr. Bernanke is our last and best hope to battle the economic crisis. My objective in detailing this is not to be value added by helping people understand and interpret the statistics they are looking at. My objective is to give all Americans a wake-up call and say we are facing a New Great Depression and we need to insist Washington takes action.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on July 24, 2009
For those thinking that the U.S. can ride the coat-tails of the global economy to recovery, think again. GDP in the U.K. fell by a worse than expected .8% in the second quarter. This dismal performance included the benefits of stimulus spending, .5% central bank interest rates, bank rescues, and quantitative easing. In Spain, unemployment for the second quarter reached 17.9%. Many Spanish construction workers are on a temporary status and are thus easier to lay-off than other workers in other parts of Europe. Admittedly, those championing growth prospects in the rest of the world often refer to the emerging economic BRIC countries, especially China. Well, in the first half of this year consumer price inflation fell 1.1% from the previous year. This in spite of significant stimulus spending on public projects by the Chinese government and the government and the government’s insistence that state own banks ramp up lending. The state owned banks supposedly doubled the lending rate from the year before. While these actions created a second quarter growth rate in China of 7.9%, it is strange that China is experiencing deflation. The rampant growth rates in China over the last several years have been accompanied by high single digit rates of inflation. In fact, inflation had been a key concern for the Chinese government up until now. To me, Chinese deflation is signaling a weakening Chinese consumer and a weakening Chinese private sector economy.
The Obama economic dream team needs to figure out how to generate internal demand, rather than chase after some pipe-dream of export led growth. And the Federal Reserve needs to up its program of quantitative easing and print more money before deflationary forces take hold in the global psyche. Once the desire to save replaces the desire to spend it could take a generation or two to reverse the psychic fabric of society. The economic paradox we face is that while spending too much got us into our economic mess, it only by spending even more that we can get out of it. Otherwise, the debts that are weighing down the economy will become even more difficult to deal with as global GDP shrinks and deflation decreases the value of assets and earnings.
Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on July 20, 2009
On Tuesday, July 21, 2009, I will be interviewed on the Mind Your BIZness on-line radio program. The program is broadcast continuously for 24 hours only on July 21. The link for those of you that are interested and would like to listen is: http://www.mindyourbizness.com/ If you do happen to listen feel free to post your thoughts on the comment section for this post. After my 15 minute interview I thought gee I wish I had said this, or I wish I would have emphasized that point. I simply had way too much to say and way too little time to say it. This led me to think what would I say to President Obama about the economy if I only had 2 minutes of his valuable time? I certainly wouldn’t have time to go into the background of analyzing how the economy wound up in the position it did. I wouldn’t have time to waste saying who was to blame for the mess we are in. I would only have time to emphasize the seriousness of the situation and what must be done about it.
The first thing I would say is this, “Mr. President, the number one problem facing America is the never ending stream of foreclosures . We currently have a national supply of single family homes to accommodate 70% of all Americans. However, well under 50% of Americans currently qualify to purchase a new home because mortgage standards are way too tight. There is a huge discrepancy between supply and demand. As long as there are more homes to buy than there are buyers, the foreclosures will not stop. The first step in fixing the economy is providing access to affordable mortgage credit to far more Americans. Mr. President, the same problem exists for autos. Fold Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back into the federal government and start guaranteeing home and auto loan securities.” Well, after those few short sentences my first minute of the President’s time is up. I now have only one minute left to make another point. I need to make sure it is the most important point I have to make.
My second point would be “Mr. President, we have millions of people who are unemployed with many more on the way. Last year one in two college graduates had a job offer upon graduation. This year it is one in five. This has to change now. Lower the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to encourage older workers to retire and open up jobs for younger workers. To pay for this have a heart to heart meeting with the Federal Reserve and have them buy back most of the outstanding Treasury bonds in existence. This would save the country $400 billion a year in interest payments, which can then be used to pay the $400 billion cost of lowering the retirement age to 60. Quit letting China and the bond vigilantes dictate U.S. policy. Print them their checks first and tell them thanks for their respected input, but at this time the U.S. is choosing to avoid any chance at re-entering a new great depression.” That’s it. My two minutes are up. For a rambling version that fails to concisely make the above points you can tune in to Mind Your BIZness.
