It's The Economy!

by DM
Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama have more in common than all being or having-been Presidents-Elect.

The economy.

Jimmy Carter inherited Richard Nixon's disastrous post-war economy. Inflation was out-of-control. Inflation was so bad that his predecessor, Nixon replacement Gerald Ford, stooped to having "WIN" buttons distributed to promote the phony whip inflation now grass-roots campaign.

Carter took the proper step: he increased interest rates to slow down inflation. It was working, but the Nixon apologists were impatient and insisted that the incredibly successful American economy be completely abandoned to supply-side theories. They found a poster boy, and in 1980 we embarked on the economic plan that has resulted, this one generation later, in an economy that barely exists.

Supply-side theory sounds lovely when presented by Hollywood elitists on the right; but has been an utter failure in practice.

After Ronald Reagan left the Federal government gutted and broke, his successor, the elder Bush, was required to attempt a recovery. He did his best, but the supply-siders had become entrenched and he was doomed to fail. This led to Bill Clinton's election.

Clinton is that despicable hybrid of pretend-social-liberal and pro-business apologist. But, he balanced the budget, reduced spending, and worked to re-tool the tax code. He is, however, the only president ever to have signed laws that actually deny Americans their basic right to participate in American society. He did, however, get the limping economy on a crutch and ready for the supply-siders to complete their dismantling of American economy, American justice, American governance, and American ingenuity.

Barack Obama is inheriting the disaster that George W Bush has wrought: a failing economy and a failing tax code.

This is actually good for Obama. There is little he can do to save the economy. It took us 28 years to get into this mess, and it will take at least two terms of sanity to undue the tax code, the bad judicial appointments, and the immoral anti-civil liberty legislation.

He can, however, fix the tax code, and that will allow the federal government to stabilize at least the consumer side of the economy. This could make him a hero.

It might take wholesale Pinochet-style assassinations and disappearances of corporate executives to save the overall economy, and nobody wants that, so as the tax code is re-written, regulation of the marketplace has to be re-instituted. This will take more than a year, or a term, and maybe more than two terms. I hope that Obama is the guy with the testicular fortitude to do it.

The American people have to be patient. Don't let 1980 happen all over again. We need to fix things, it's going to take time, and it's going to require the abandonment of supply-side theory.

Be patient.

Thank God, Allah, your bookie, the sun goddess, or anyone else you like to thank, that the Democrats are back to fix things (again), and ask your higher power for the patience to let liberals fix the mess (again) that conservatives have wrought.