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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (682082)	5/12/2005 2:10:48 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"If you think we can solve all of the problems at once you have more confidence than I do." But I don't... I just think the time for delay and prevarication is well past, and the crisis is nie upon us, so it's well past time to get serious. "BTW - IMO the ability to print money is much like the ability to sign up for ever more credit cards, and dig deeper into debt." You make an interesting point I hadn't considered... I guess if there was NO CREDIT SCORING and approval for new credit lines was always automatic.... (Still, even with sovereigns able to print ALL the paper fiat currency they want --- such as the Weimar Republic, Argentina, or any other sovereign... say: the US --- even there a day of reckoning where lenders demand better terms to accept their debts is always just over-the-hill, it's not a mere theoretical possibility... it's a real fact of economic life.) "As you have seen, the debt as a percent of GDP is not soaring." Depends on what you consider 'soaring' to be. It's rising FAR too fast for my druthers. "Recent news reports indicate that the trade imbalance is shrinking." Oh, please! A minor dip in one month's numbers (yet still near all-time historical highs) does not confirm a significant change in trend... (And, this during a time of economic recovery! The business cycle hasn't been repealed: so what effect will the next recession [perhaps '06] have upon the numbers if our 'progress' on the trade numbers is tortuous at best during good times?) "President Bush proposed eliminating many wasteful programs," LOL! Presidents' propose a lot of things. How many HAS he eliminated? Clinton & Reagan had some success at restraining the growth of federal bureaucracy... but not this guy: not one veto YET! "and is demonstrating more fiscal restraint than any previous time as President." PLEASE!!!!!!!! You are just making this stuff up as you go! We haven't had as fiscally irresolute an administration since the LAST 'TEXAS PRESIDENT', LBJ, who (coincidence anyone?) was also the LAST guy to believe that a deficit-financed program of GUNS & BUTTER was a really good idea. "The debt is climbing more rapidly than most people realize because of the unenumerated liabilities caused by the PayGo system." LOL! No, THIS ONE 'ya gotta explain to me! The PAYGO rules expired years ago --- and had only a very modest beneficial effect at restraing new spending when they were in effect. (Still, I'll take even a modest benefit.) So, how in the Hell do you conclude that "PAYGO rules caused unenumerated liabilities"?????????? (If all you were trying to say was that scheming, lying politicians always try to evade and work around whatever rules or constraints are placed upon their pork-barrel spending abilities, I'll grant that is a 'given'.... But it DOES NOT THEREFORE MEAN that a condition of no restraints upon spending is superior!!!!!!!!!!)

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (682082)	5/12/2005 3:19:22 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in March. Economists applauded the news yesterday. They said the lower dollar was finally doing its work - the imbalance was being corrected. But a lower dollar is supposed to correct the trade imbalance by boosting exports... not by reducing consumer spending on imports. No export increase was spotted. But then we notice another little item from yesterday - consumer spending in April fell. Consumers are having a hard time keeping up with rising expenses; that's the real reason the trade deficit shrank. This item, too, glommed on to Monday's shocker - that wages took their biggest drop in 13 years. All of a sudden, little thoughts were big ones. They were all connected into one repulsive blob: We are getting poorer. Americans earn less, so they spend less, the boom in consumer spending is ending... a bust must be coming. In today's press comes another little bit of news. The Bank of England will have to cut rates soon in order to fight a slowdown. Retail sales are down. Factory output is down. And even house prices are going down." --- from Daily Reckoning.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (682082)	5/12/2005 5:39:11 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Trade Deficit Numbers: (from Big Trends....) "...First, this data is two months old (from March). Has this information already been priced into the U.S. stock market? Odds are that it has, leaving no real room for additional gains. Second, this 9 percent dip in the deficit follows the all-time high deficit from February. Of course we're probably going to see a dip - a brief reversal is a common occurrence when you hit new levels. In other words, we really had nowhere to go but down. The longer-term deficit trend is far more meaningful, and the trend itself is still a bit questionable. The forecasted deficit for this year (based on the trend over the first quarter) is still going to be bigger than last year's annual deficit, which happened to be an all-time high as well. So while this may indeed be the beginning of a lot of trade problems being resolved, we're still not seeing nearly enough evidence of that to say that the worst is over. In fact, the improvement in March was largely the result of slowed imports of Chinese textiles. It's not likely that we have any more lucky breaks like that in the pipeline. In fact, our chart of the U.S. dollar suggests the opposite. Based on the potential rebound in the dollar (compared to euros and yen), there's probably going to be more pressure for the trade gap to be widened rather than closed."