More Palin Lies

[ajmccarrell]

What she said makes sense, but if you don't understand exactly what the economy is, it would be easy to misunderstand her statement. What actually concerns me is a guy who says he wants to raise taxes on anyone making over $250,000.00 when that is the segment who employs people, while we are teetering on the edge of a recession. That is truly a stupid policy.

The "economy" is not some entity somewhere, nor is it the condition of the financial markets, stock market, federal government deficit, etc, it is the summary of our spending activity as measured by GDP. Certainly these other things are factors, but it is possible to be in a recession with a strong stock market, a budget surplus, and sound financial markets. Conversely is possible for the economy to be having problems and for the fundamentals to be strong simultaneously. If these things are strong, it is easier for people to spend more money, but just because these are bad doesn't mean that people will all of a sudden close their wallets entirely either. It's kind of hard to summarize several years of economics into a few paragraphs here. Suffice it to say that the average person has a wrong idea of what the economy actually is.

For example, we are having a banking crisis, however the economy is measured by the spending activity of the US population, so we can have a shaky economic condition, but your average person is not yet feeling the effects and may not feel the effects. Your average person isn't likely to stop shopping simply because AIG was bailed out, or because Merrill Lynch is seeking a buyer, or because banks fail. Unline 1929, we do have a safety net, which is the Federal Reserve, so your money is safe as long as it is not in non-FDIC insured investments or accounts.

This crisis is largely self-inflicted. The public ate up bad loans like mad and bankers saw opportunities to get rich by shaky investments backed by assets that lost their value. No one person is responsible, anyone who got a loan that wasn't standard, or any bank who lent without proper documentation, or any person who made risky investments is to blame collectively. All of these bailouts are just likely to stave off the problem long enough for it to snowball even worse than it is now. Government takeovers of banks truly worries me.