The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

More Time

A little-noticed event that occurred at the end of last week. Part of the reason that few were aware of it is that most of the main stream media (now an effective extension of the Obama re-election campaign) chose not to cover the story or mentioned it only briefly and without any serious discussion of its meaning and import. But nonetheless, it's worth mentioning here.

CNBC reports:
Ratings firm Egan-Jones cut its credit rating on the U.S. government to "AA-" from "AA," citing its opinion that quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve would hurt the U.S. economy and the country's credit quality.

The Fed on Thursday said it would pump $40 billion into the U.S. economy each month until it saw a sustained upturn in the weak jobs market. (Read more: Fed's 'QE Infinity' — Four Things That Could Go Wrong)

In its downgrade, the firm said that issuing more currency and depressing interest rates through purchasing mortgage-backed securities does little to raise the U.S.'s real gross domestic product, but reduces the value of the dollar.

In turn, this increases the cost of commodities, which will pressure the profitability of businesses and increase the costs of consumers thereby reducing consumer purchasing power, the firm said.

But no worries. the President tells us we're better off today than we were when he was elected, and that all he needs is "more time."

My question is "more time" for what? More time to add another $4 trillion to our existing deficit—a contributing reason for the downgrade? More time to continue his divisive class warfare rhetoric as if that will somehow correct the budgetary hole he is digging?? More time to obfuscate about our failing entitlement programs, rather than making clear and specific recommendations to avoid the upcoming bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare (I forgot ... the media requires that only Mitt Romney is required to be specific -- Obama can be as abstract and vague as he likes)? More time to blame anyone but his administration and failed policies for chronic unemployment, worsening personal income, and a new business environment that is poisonous? More time to entrench Obamacare in the culture and thereby add still another forcing function to our looming fiscal troubles? Maybe more time to approach the "fiscal cliff" that will be upon us in January with no attempt to reach a bipartisan accord with the GOP (oops, I again forgot that it's all the GOP's fault — the President is absolutely blameless in all of this ... a victim even)?

More time.

Barack Obama has had plenty of time. The problem is he had not had plenty of beneficial results. Lots of words, sure. Lot's of excuses, of course. Lots of finger pointing, without question. But results and solutions that will move us out of our fiscal decline — not so much.

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Update: (9/17/2012)

FoxNews reports that according to the US Treasury Department, the total public debt on January 20, 2009 (the day Obama took office) was $10.62 trillion. The public debt on June 30, 2012 was $15.85 trillion. The GDP at the end of 1Q09 was $13.92 trillion and the GDP at the end of 2Q12 was $15.60 trillion.

In the "time" we've already given Barack Obama, he has grown to economy by $1.68 trillion. In that same time, he has added over $5.23 trillion in new debt! So ... for every dollar he has added in growth, he had added over $3 in debt. If we give him more time to continue that trajectory, well, you do the math ...