State of the Union
Wall Street soars while Mainstreet drowns. The economy grows, but only the rich become richer. The rest of us cling to whatever floating debris passes by in an attempt to keep our heads above water.
Everyone knows this, including every democrat, who quote Wall Street's soaring profits as a symbol of president Obama's success as a leader. Those exact same democrats will hop on Bernie Sander's bandwagon and cheer when he attacks those very same Wall Streets profits as an illusion created by crony capitalism. Although, admittedly, Bernie doesn't seem to know how an economy is supposed to work.
Let's be clear, though, you can't have it both ways. Either president Obama has worked miracles with the wretched economy that he inherited, or he has simply presided over the greatest expansion of the money supply in human history. Thanks, in no small part, to the Federal Reserve, who created trillions of dollars out of thin air. Meaning, that president Obama has done little more than spend borrowed money like a man with a no-limit credit card, just like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did before him.
I'm not suggesting that there is nothing real about our economy, there is plenty of genuine productivity and creative capitalism at work in America and abroad. That, however, is a very different animal than "crony capitalism," which is really closer to fascism than it is capitalism. It is the unfortunate melding of the two, political cronyism and miraculously manufactured capital, that has wreaked economic chaos on a near global basis.
The real problem is, that our central bank has overinflated the economy to the point of creating a series of bubbles; student loans, for instance, and housing prices, it has also kept afloat the auto industry, including all the businesses that feed directly into these industries. In other words, cheap, easy money has created a false economy, much like a personal bank account that's been bolstered by credit card cash advances and second mortgage money. This isn't the result of earned money, which is self-replenishing, but borrowed money, which must be paid back with interest. Such an economy is not sustainable because the value of our assets (houses, cars, bank accounts, etc.) isn't real.
That, my friends, is the real state of the union, without the bullshit.
Mark Magula
Everyone knows this, including every democrat, who quote Wall Street's soaring profits as a symbol of president Obama's success as a leader. Those exact same democrats will hop on Bernie Sander's bandwagon and cheer when he attacks those very same Wall Streets profits as an illusion created by crony capitalism. Although, admittedly, Bernie doesn't seem to know how an economy is supposed to work.
Let's be clear, though, you can't have it both ways. Either president Obama has worked miracles with the wretched economy that he inherited, or he has simply presided over the greatest expansion of the money supply in human history. Thanks, in no small part, to the Federal Reserve, who created trillions of dollars out of thin air. Meaning, that president Obama has done little more than spend borrowed money like a man with a no-limit credit card, just like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton did before him.
I'm not suggesting that there is nothing real about our economy, there is plenty of genuine productivity and creative capitalism at work in America and abroad. That, however, is a very different animal than "crony capitalism," which is really closer to fascism than it is capitalism. It is the unfortunate melding of the two, political cronyism and miraculously manufactured capital, that has wreaked economic chaos on a near global basis.
The real problem is, that our central bank has overinflated the economy to the point of creating a series of bubbles; student loans, for instance, and housing prices, it has also kept afloat the auto industry, including all the businesses that feed directly into these industries. In other words, cheap, easy money has created a false economy, much like a personal bank account that's been bolstered by credit card cash advances and second mortgage money. This isn't the result of earned money, which is self-replenishing, but borrowed money, which must be paid back with interest. Such an economy is not sustainable because the value of our assets (houses, cars, bank accounts, etc.) isn't real.
That, my friends, is the real state of the union, without the bullshit.
Mark Magula