Bill. Thanks for all those articles.
RE: Read before you buy.
So true. I read it and also listened to all of A.Greenspan's testimony this morning. What a farce imo. I am def. losing my admiration for this man. Not only does he still try to talk in riddles, but I also detected some untruths, the way I came away with it. He mentioned in this morning's testimony, that he never opined which tax cut he would prefer, if there was one. Well, that's not true. When asked in one of those hearings he def. said that he would be in favor of an across the board tax cut. In other words: Cutting the marginal tax rate. He evidently did not remember this statement this morning since he mentioned he never opined on any specific tax cut out there. He said he did not want to get involved in this and then went on to opine that he would be in favor of triggers, if tax cuts came about. Duh. So much again for not wanting to get involved. If you have triggers, you may see tax cuts for a cpl of years and then spending would make sure that we don't get any tax cuts. I really think Greenspan should read his previous statements more closely, if he is starting to lose his memory some, before he makes his rounds in front of the House, Senate and committees. He will appear in front of the budget committee next. Ouch.. BTW, again, he did prev. mention that his first priority was to reduce the debt, but that his second choice was a tax cut, preferable to increased spending. He had also mentioned that by the year 2005 or 6 the debt would be so low that there was a possibility that there would be then too much money in GVT's hands and you would have to implement a big tax cut then, which would cause an imbalance then. He did say the same thing again this morning, so why not say outright, just like before, that a tax cut now would forestall this problem and at the same time be a insurance policy in case the economy would slow for a longer period than expected. He did skate around this a little this morning and also said that the FED did not have a clear picture, at this time, how long the slow down would last.
He, of course, did not take any blame for causing part of this recession in the first place. Those guys just never do.
And all this talk out there about the Reagan tax cuts causing that following big deficit, is for the birds. It was not the tax cuts, it was the spending that increased at least double along with the tax cuts. If they had held the line on spending after the tax cut, things would never have gotten out of hand. And same thing holds true at this time imo. Return part of the surplus to the taxpayers and hold the line on spending to the inflation rate. And, btw, there is this crazy talk that once you cut the taxes it is then hard to increase them. Well, I have not been able to detect that. There has been so many more tax increases than decreases. But when it comes to our money, some just don't want to part with it.
Anyhow, things are pretty murky now and no wonder the market is reacting like today. Investors are now at the mercy of all the talking heads.
I got to get off here and read the other messages later on.
Sonny |
