Random Ruminations
- Healthcare reform is the latest in a series of manufactured emergencies being used by politicians to ram through legislation that otherwise wouldn't survive the scrutiny of a more deliberative process. There is no doubt the healthcare system must be transformed if our economy is to achieve its long-term potential, but the President is being disingenuous by suggesting we won't emerge from recession until healthcare is fixed. The two are unrelated. Just more political slight of hand.
- Stupidity has no party affiliation. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is strong-arming companies like Microsoft to stop employing H-1B visa workers in lieu of (he thinks) U.S. citizens. In a fit of myopia, Grassley fails to recognize that it is in our collective economic interest to attract as much brainpower as possible into the country, particularly in these difficult economic times. H-1B visas are used for highly skilled workers with scarce skill sets, not cheap labor. More dangerously short-sighted parochialism from Congress.
- When Obama and the Democrats say they won't be wedded to the failed Republican policies (i.e. tax cuts) of the past 30 years, isn't that analogous to a doctor saying he won't be tied to the tired old way of treating infections with antibiotics?
- It's shocking, although it shouldn't be given the past six weeks, that Obama has not directed Pelosi and Reid to pull back on this disaster of an omnibus spending bill. If not a cut in spending, why not at least freeze the total appropriation at last year's level? An 8% increase over the previous year (2 to 3 times the rate of inflation!) with the extra baggage of 8,000+ earmarks makes him appear very hypocritical. It also represents one of Obama's more blatant examples of words being a long way from deeds.
- The markets cannot stabilize until the Obama administration decides what it's going to do with distressed banks. No rational investor would put money into a market that is subject to such political capriciousness. Also, it wouldn't hurt if the "stimulus" actually had some stimulative elements.
- As stated months ago on this Blog, we'd benefit considerably from a relaxation of Mark-to-Market accounting rules and a return to the Uptick rule.
- Not since Joe Namath has an individual or group been more overrated than the Obama economic team. The one guy who actually has a track record of success in dire economic times, Paul Volcker, has been muzzled and sent to the end of the bench.
- It was always somewhat amusing to witness the deification of Robert Rubin and his disciples (e.g. Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, etc.). Everyone always seems to forget that they were beneficiaries of a confluence of three of the largest bubbles (Internet, Y2K, Telecom) in modern history. Right place at the right time.
- Has there been a greater Presidential bait-and-switch than the one Barack Obama has perpetrated? One might argue that Bush 43's oft repeated campaign rhetoric of unequivocal opposition to "nation building" is similar in magnitude. Of course, there's always Woodrow Wilson. He won reelection in 1916 on the back of a slogan, "He kept us out of war." A year later, he led the U.S. into WWI.
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