The banking system is the oil and lubricant of our economic system. Many of the larger institutions are in serious trouble and have already received bail out funding, e.g., Citi.

The present Treasury risk outlook implies that banks as a group are over-valuing their assets by 63% and that Treasury sees possibly having to spend up to $8.8 on the bail out, not what you are hearing.

Currently only a small portion of the $8.8 is funded. Money is being printed to support the bail out as it progresses. No one really knows how far this will go or what the true value of bank assets will finally be.

If we keep going down this path and, worse, add more structural debt, there is no way for America to avoid an unsustainable financial and probably economic situation.

How we are handling the bank situation and the misguided plan to add out-year social deficit spending, both need to be completely revisited.
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Why write this, is there not enough being written already? A lot is being written. But there is also a lot of disinformation and misguided/disingenuous analysis floating around.

We are at a major threshold and in my view the Congressional leadership is indulging in economic adventurism that so pushes the envelope, a disastrous outcome is more likely than not. Our representatives need input from the citizenry.

This attempts to lay out the situation in plain language, and to offer a short list of the items you can use to with your representatives.

Please contact them.

Content: The Problem, Where Are We, What Should be Done Macro and Micro Read the rest of this entry »

I am not the first to say this, but debating an idea as the preamble to voting on it in a democratic society which values freedom of expression and embraces concepts of equality as America does, requires that the debater move beyond moral and personal instinct onto a plane of logical argument.

The debate itself is understood as being decisive in our equality-based societal philosophy. This is used by people such as anarchists, many of whom do nothing else but prepare, and change-everything people and groups of all stripes who are focused on their cause.

The listeners and voters, us, are mostly off doing something else everyday and come into such pivotal debates in learning mode. Because of this, we cannot often: 1) convince ideologues; or 2) out debate them. So we are left, at the end of the day, with the values we walked in with.

The people of the America need to understand this and the concepts of ideological debate better than many presently do. The times demand it.

Pass this on.

You may have noted that several newspapers have are either gone out of business or are in dire straits. The Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle are in trouble, the Chicago Sun Times is out of business as is the Rocky Mountain News. The Columbus Dispatch and many others are cutting cost by dropping Associated Press (AP) fees. There is more.

The newspaper business has been under subscriber pressure for some time due to the Internet. The industry has been insulated from market forces for an even longer period. Newspapers were "just there".

It is unlikely those who stop publishing will come back. We are in the process of an economic reset whose roots reach back nearly 25 years.

So, big changes are coming, and we are likely to lose a large number of newspapers. Do we care?
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Let me get right to it. This issue is too important for too many people to remain politicized, but that is, pretty much, all the public has been and is exposed to.

When we start dialoguing on thorny issues such as healthcare solutions, very quickly, America is bad, change your model of living, and other effects of never-ending waves of propaganda and disinformation start to dominate. It happens nearly 100% of the time.

I think I speak for a great number of people in America by saying that, for once, we would like to have public officials honestly address and debate the fact the US medical expenses are rising disproportionately, and:

1) what they propose that will simultaneously do no immediate or long-term harm; and

2) what is going to be done about the root causes of our rising costs

We need to avoid being foot soldiers of ideology and look beyond propaganda from the media and the social engineering crowd.  For example, the  model Canada has, the UK has, Switzerland has, is immaterial except as considerations around forming a solution/new framework, and, as such, should be known to us fully.  

When we look at cost, let's ask for honest, open dialogue on:

• the role of Washington regulation now and in the future,
• on lawyers and the ethics of what they are doing,
• on doctors abusing their professional freedom with unnecessary operations and diagnostic procedures;
• and what is the balance between the cost of developing successful phamaceuticals and abusive profiteering.

Before Washington winds itself up, we need to demand (because asking will not have the same effect) open dialogue in at least these areas.

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Debating what is best for the country right now is the right thing for us to be doing. Blindly following the ideas of this administration, or any other for that matter, is (while understandable) inadvisable under these circumstances. We need to think for ourselves. The stakes are really high this time.

One of the problems we are having is separating out ideology - difficult at any point in time. We have been conditioned by the media, political campaigners, some educators, and others, to view things along these lines. And also encouraged to listen to our emotions first, which, of course, is our basic nature anyway. The governing model of the folks that work to influence us is that "ideas rule".

But stop for a minute and leave the name Obama, Bush 43, Keynes, FDR, and all that out of it. Resynch to the true nature of what is being proposed both at the macro and micro level.

Macro refers in this case to progress in the overall economy, e.g. is bank lending occuring.

By micro I am referring to whether we can afford to eat and clothe ourselves, and live inside shelter in safety - Maslow level.

Now ask yourself, from what are being proposed as solutions, which, if any, do I (my own personal opinion) feel will directly result in the most immediate and positive economic effect while doing the least harm to the future of our economy.

Do not focus on the micro at the expense of the macro. Try to separate out disinformation and people pushing our emotive buttons (not easy) and try hardest to think not as others may have conditioned you.

It is an interesting exercise and what the country needs from us.

Please do not take this as my being patronizing. That is not at all the intention. I, too, have some strongly held opinions. But being for or against Obama, Bush or anyone else is something I manage to filter out. That allows, me at least, to see things differently. Perhaps it will work for you.