Inflation, The True Stimulant

How great is this commercial? In a serious way, I share a lot of the same sentiments concerning our new government leadership and the stimulus package they are schedule to finalize Tuesday.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson

At the very base of my opinion, lies the foundational thought that government should leave us alone. I am a fiscal libertarian. Over the course of history, often times when the government has acted, it has resulted in short-term success and long-term failure. All government regulation comes with unintended consequences. Look around at the industries that struggle: airlines, health insurance, and most recently housing. Airlines & health care have long been inundated with government regulation, and now they are a disaster. Recently the housing & credit markets have tanked, due to…(you guessed it)…government ‘helping’ unqualified people get houses (see the community reinvestment act).

Our government has been able to introduce much of this regulation under a guise. They introduce a tremendous amount of fear into the minds of Americans and provide a solution soaked in mistakes (and agenda).

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor — with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
Douglas MacArthur

You probably heard all of the politicians warnings. Under both the Bush White House & the Obama White House, the message was the same – pass this bailout bill by tomorrow or the world will come to an end. Time and time again the bill wasn’t passed by the artificial deadline and nothing happened. Hell, Bush passed a stimulus bill and the end result was nothing more than increased national debt.

We are spoon fed the dismal state of our economy. How everyone has lost their job and everyone’s house is being foreclosed on. Things aren’t that bad. Take job losses for example – not that bad.

Or even unemployment – not that bad.

My point is this, our leaders are either idiots or liars. They are either misleading us for political gain or they are so stupid they shouldn’t hold office. I’ll assume that they mean well and are simply subjecting themselves to the same fear we see on the nightly news. A country governed by emotion is a country in disarray. Fear will drive us to make costly decisions.

Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson

Our leaders should rise above the emotion and political gain. They have unbelievable access to factual information. They should pursue truth and exercise leadership. I don’t want a popularity contest winner in office. I want someone to lead our country.

If you want to have something to be fearful of, I’ll give you something. The one thing I am fearful of is the very same thing Washington believes will resolve all of my fear. That is the stimulus package and our inability as a government to fund it.

We are playing with borrowed money. It doesn’t take an economist to tell you, debt=risk. On a national scale, debt also equals inflation. The US dollar is worth less because our country is fiscally upside-down. Subsequently, we take a beating on the exchange of currency on everything we import, which is everything. Deeper we go…

Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.
Benjamin Franklin

Interesting Update: I spoke with a banker yesterday concerning the bailout funds. He said that even though banks have received money, they have also received countless new government regulations on how they can lend it. He explained that the new regulations kept him from lending quality loans to quality people. What sense does it make for government to give money to banks to soften the credit markets and then regulate the inability to lend it?