Intelligence, Please…

It would be undignified to allow Mr. Scoville to “unload both barrels” without firing back, especially when I maintain a strong belief in my subject matter. Let it first be said, however, that Mr. Scoville is right on at least one point. He accuses me of succumbing to simple political gamesmanship in one of my points, and he is correct.

There are three types of argument a man may make: that of principle, that of policy, and that of politics. Principle, of course, deals with the philosophy of a thing, and whether it is right or wrong to consider pursuing a course of action. Policy deals with the methodology of a course of action. Politics, however, deals with the egos and lower thoughts of men. I succumbed to a political discussion earlier, and it was ill-founded.

As for the rest…

First, I did not mention “transparency” in my discussion for a reason. The idea that men would wish to be transparent is a noble sentiment, but ridiculous to expect. Would you wish to broadcast your ideas and motivations for each major decision you are forced to make in your life? Heavens no! We wish to make a decision, argue only in support of it, and then leave it alone. To expect more of our politicians is absurd.

“Transparency” is produced only when it benefits men to reveal certain information about the other. A senator will not reveal his corporate ties unless they are used against him by an opponent. Likewise, if two opponents have both received unsavory corporate contributions, they will not reveal the other’s – this is an understood ideal scenario of game theory. Julian Assange has nothing to lose by revealing the Afghan War Diaries – and, as he probably disagrees with the war, everything to gain. On the contrary, the U.S. government has everything to lose from transparency and nothing to gain.

Mr. Scoville argues that classified documents should always remain classified in the interest of troop safety. Were that the case, the torture at Abu Ghraib in violation of U.S. and international law as well as the questionable behavior of the Blackwater organization. The argument that war crimes are an unfortunate accident of war has been used time and time again. When they are committed by the victor, they can be ignored. When they are committed by our enemy, they must be condemned. We can go back and forth on this.

The fact of the matter is that Wikileaks has not posted any information it has received regarding the war over the past seven months. Any information released to the New York Times (and others) is old news on the front, but new news to the American public. Were Mr. Assange to release documents from the past month, even the past six months, he would draw my condemnation as well. But this is not the case.

Though I have referenced him here, it is also noted that I did not mention Mr. Assange by name anywhere in the article except in the meta-tag. I have no doubt that Mr. Assange no doubt thinks too highly of himself. I also believe that he injects his own opinions into the information, not to his credit. Yet to say that the only information he has posted were the things critical to the U.S. is entirely false. That, of course, is his most recent release. I think that you will find that it is not his only release, and that his fire has been directed against most everyone.

Mr. Scoville’s final point (except for the one about playing piano in fourth grade – which we shall address later) asks “since when did hunting down Osama bin Laden become an issue of political popularity?” This, of course, may be perhaps the heart of the issue. I do not believe Osama bin Laden is behind our involvement in Afghanistan any more. We have plenty of evidence to suggest that he is at least inactive or ineffective (if not dead), and perhaps more to suggest that our funds might be better spent cleaning up our intelligence community.

And yet, in summation, I cannot argue that the concerns about safety would be invalid had Mr. Assange simply delayed release of these documents until the day after the troops were sent home. Mr. Assange has provided no proof that anything occurred in Afghanistan outside the expected. Nor did he uncover anything comparable to Abu Ghraib that existed outside the realm of military strategy. While I believe that Wikileaks is a necessary counterbalance to that which would attempt to remain secret (regardless of its motivations), the organization made a questionable judgment call in timing. This cannot be disputed, and it was not appropriately discussed by myself or Mr. Scoville. For myself, I attempted to deflect criticism about timing. For Mr. Scoville, he attempted to criticize timing while ignoring the positive impact of a Wikileaks in the world. We are but men.

All this being said, it is most interesting to me that Mr. Scoville played piano in fourth grade while the other kids played football. I believe I was getting fitted for glasses in the fourth grade that would never be replaced by contacts – thus dooming me to a life of nerd. We also would both grow up to listen to Phish. Perhaps this says something about us, which we leave to your consideration.

Full disclosure: I am a 100% supporter of Wikileaks.org. I continue to hear countless tales that this information could be used to compromise American troops on active duty, but I have yet to see any direct proof that it has done so. In fact, I believe that the organization actively strives to prevent that scenario in order to preserve its credibility.

That being said, the recent release of the Afghan War Diaries has raised some serious questions. The White House isn’t quite sure how it wants to play the papers: sometimes saying that they aren’t a big deal while at other times saying they “have the potential to be very harmful” to the U.S. Both the Democrats and Republicans have every reason to be a bit nervous about Wikileaks. For obvious reasons, the papers affect the Democratic administration trying to continue to sell a war that just became a lot more unpopular. Yet the Republicans should not forget that the majority of the papers deal with the war under President Bush, and they can be brought up again.

To be sure, the Afghan War Diaries are not a “smoking gun” in any sense of the word. But they do represent the next stage in the organization. In April, Wikileaks released video of a U.S. helicopter attack on civilians. Now, with the War Diaries, the game has stepped up. The organization has grown in popularity/notoriety, and the U.S. government doesn’t know if it’s a mere fad organization that got lucky, or the start of a trend that would be devastating to government secrecy.

This has bad news written all over it for the President choosing to continue the Afghan war, but it doesn’t mean much better for the Republican party. Their recent past / prospective presidential candidates have been McCain (hawk), Palin (hawk), Gingrich (hawk) and Romney (hawk). Meanwhile, the Tea Party is beginning to muster. One of their choice speakers (Paul) is a notable non-hawk. I won’t say a dove, but he is outspokenly in favor of withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will be watching with intent the discussions held in the wake of the War Diaries leaks. I will be watching more the progress of Wikileaks – for now, the next level of revelations could be far beyond some mixed communications reports from the front.

More potato-y goodness!

Let’s just talk turkey here for a second, or rather, potato. The economic potato, if you will. I mentioned first that the first portion of the potato involved a refocusing of the government away from haphazard bailouts and an endless injection of liquidity into the system.

Let me also say that I believe governments can appropriately stimulate the economy, in a statement that will be a departure from conservative orthodoxy. There are certain industries whose grip over the economy is so strong that a small amount of funding has a large economic multiplier. These industries generally have use in every sector of the economy, but it is a rare meeting of the right industry with the right stimulus.

Next week, the House of Representatives is about to start discussing a portion of the Pickens Plan for energy independence. Specifically, they will be debating the merits of a $64,000 tax credit for trucking firms to buy rigs that run on natural gas. I support this plan.

The $64,000 tax credit can be used toward the acquisition of trucks. However, companies would still be held responsible for installing the refueling infrastructure necessary to fuel these rigs at their own expense. The trucks are useless without refueling stations, and it is questionable that any trucking company wants to buy natural gas trucks without also investing in the infrastructure to power them.

As such, it seems logical to me that trucking companies would first wish to upgrade the infrastructure in areas where their trucks can easily return to a base. For instance, the East Coast may see a new wave of fueling station upgrades as firms strategically install the minimum number of stations needed to make the trek from one key area to another. In a purely hypothetical situation, trains may cart goods from Baltimore to Boston, then natural gas trucks would transport certain goods to the Massachusetts area while standard gasoline trucks were used for the trips into Maine.

As businesses continued to realize cost savings from the natural gas machines, it would then behoove them to expand their infrastructure while foregoing purchases of diesel engines in exchange for the natural gas engines. Diesel engines would eventually be retired and trucking companies would maintain natural gas pumps at the necessary places.

Look what I did: I just stimulated the economy with a temporary $64,000 tax break on natural gas engines. But more than that – I gave us a long term direction.

Two things drove the U.S. economy from 2001 to 2008: war and egregious consumer spending driven by cheap credit. We are now tired of war, and credit is difficult to find. As such, we have no economy; we have no purpose. If we are going to rip out of this recession, the economy needs a leader.

I believe investment in alternative energy is the natural (no pun intended) leader for an improved economy. But infrastructure plays are not cheap, and the technology is not quite ready for a full roll-out. But is it possible that we have mis-judged alternative energy because we are thinking too big?

When I was in D.C., I noticed many public trash cans had solar panels on top. These panels powered a trash compactor within the can. Such was their purpose. High tech trash cans. I also regularly utilize a program at work called “PlanetSaver” which should really be called “Save the Company Money by Installing this Software That Turns Off Your Unused Monitor.” Little Windows scripting and suddenly BAM!, the firm is saving electricity costs. These are alternative energy plays. They are simple, and they work.

Quite frankly, wind farms are ugly. They also generally fail to produce the sheer amount of energy needed. But what if we stopped trying to make them do everything? What if we could sell a farmer a windmill at a reasonable price that would power his irrigation, and that was it?

I believe that for decades, innovation and economic growth valued the new and shiny rather than the efficient. By this, I mean that we have valued the computer for its capabilities to do more, rather than its ability to save time doing stuff we already did. As such, conservation (not only of funds, but of time or labor) as an economic engine has fallen out of favor. Yet there are signs that tell me it may be back.

Groupon, an application that promotes saving via coupon clipping, has recently received a $1 billion valuation. That is HUGE for a company that just sells coupons. Alternative energy may find its way as well when it can speak to companies about its cost-saving benefits. Also, you’ll have to make sure that you don’t have any liberals on the sales team that talk about saving the planet. That can backfire.

I believe cost-cutting will begin to be an economy-driver in and of itself, especially if epic inflation kicks in via the Federal Reserve. Time will tell.

And when we have found a way to distill alternative fuels from potatoes, then you shall have all the more reason to call me Prophet.

The economic potato. See below

All of you need to get your act together, stat. Many of you are still operating in a sort of “pissed at Obama” mode that clouds judgment. You sit there, eating the finest of crabcakes and lobster from the East Coast, unaware that the powers that be have every intention of ripping even the lobster from your mouth. Either you take things too seriously or not seriously enough, or both.

The grand exit from this recession, desired by many, is not going to come in the way that the politicos, economists and financial planners believe it will. They (and many of you) are watching things like housing numbers, consumer spending, etc. for clues to the end of this situation. At the same time, they are decrying Obama “job-killing policies” and saying that mess like “austerity” will somehow fix us.

Idiots. If anyone thinks that austerity is some sort of magic pill that’s going to pull us out of the recession at a rapid-fire pace, they are, in a word, wrong. Austerity has all the possibility of throwing us into Great Recession Round 2, if not approached with the appropriate style. I only endorse austerity as the current Administration (and its enemy Republicans) have no notion of how to use stimulus of any sort.

Clearly, everyone has forgotten what makes successful economies happen. Successful economies occur when gentlemen with large brains see some way of capitalizing on gaps in the market and exploit them. We enter epic economic booms when the world is revolutionized, as was witnessed in the technology bubble of the ’90s. Investors, economists, politicians, etc. are so concerned about bubbles that they have forgotten the benefits of the Internet investment cycle. You are reading this post as a result of those investors and innovators alike. You will see it tweeted later today. The Internet has become so commonplace today that investors have forgotten the risks needed to put it in place.

The 2000s was not an investment cycle like the Internet cycle. We, as a country, did not do anything new. We built and upgraded many houses using styles familiar to architects of the 1990s. We purchased many consumer goods from China. And we patted ourselves on the back as we transitioned to a “service” economy.

I have no issue with a service economy in principle. However, if the economy can be compared to a baked potato, we have forgotten to cook the actual potato out in favor of making amazing butter for it.

When I state that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans understand stimulus, I am talking about potatoes. Democrats have decided to pursue a course of adding salt to the uncooked potato with poorly directed stimulus funding – in essence, by randomly injecting liquidity into the system. Republicans, on the other hand, scream “tax cuts” or “bacon bits” for the potato. Tax cuts for whom? Bush-era tax cuts seem to indicate that unconditional tax cuts do not spur real economic growth in a risk-averse populace.

Before I draw the fire of the conservative types that accidentally read this blog because of George, bear in mind that I am not unilaterally opposed to stimulus or tax cuts. I’m merely saying that neither party seems to be able to do it right. Neither one is cooking the potato.

Thus, I condone the use of austerity, so long as spending reductions outpace any sort of tax cuts. I am not in favor of false austerity, where spending is cut only marginally. If we’re going to do it, we must go big – and here’s why.

1. There are reasonable long-term concerns about the deficit if we are expected to take charge of world growth again. Europe’s debt situation sucks, in a word. China’s looking like its growth may be a little long in the tooth. Latin America doesn’t seem to have the special sauce. So, if it is to be us to take up the economic torch, deficit-reduction plans should be in place.
2. It would be far easier to negotiate currency terms with China if we didn’t need them to buy so much of our debt. Asking China to keep buying our debt and loosen the peg on the yuan is a mutually exclusive request.
3. It would send the message to our corporate overlords that there are no more bailouts coming. Why should any company invest any more? If you wait long enough, Congressional Democrats will inevitably throw a bone out there. So far, they’ve covered the financial sector, the health care sector, the automobile sector, and probably the state governments next. The risk of spending your own money is a fool’s gamble when there’s money flying out of Washington.

While the first is a concern, the second and third bullet points deal with the heart of why austerity must be done with a purpose instead of half-assed. Austerity only works if we intend to send a message. Otherwise, long live record low interest rates and epic amounts of government debt.

There are two parts to this potato. This merely discusses the first – that austerity must become a part of the economy in tandem with the second half of the potato. I shall discuss the second half of the potato in my next post.

If my last post bored you, there is no hope for you. I dare say that you should be voting Democrat as you will be living off welfare checks for the rest of your life by ignoring my advice.

If my last post intrigued you, and you said “hey, why don’t I learn a little programming, as a hobby of sorts” – this post is for you.

Let me again sell the merits of VBA, from a coding perspective.

1. You can “program” with no code at all, or use the Macro Recorder as a testing tool. If you want to do something but don’t know how to code it, use the Macro Recorder to do it first. Or, if you just don’t want to take the time to code, you can use the Macro Recorder for that.
2. VBA was designed as a teaching language. It’s called “BASIC” for a reason. It’s so easy a caveman can do it, metaphorically speaking.
3. The same syntax is used for every Office application. Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Visio, etc., etc. all use VBA in its standard form. Obviously, certain programming “objects” are different depending on the program (Excel deals with cells while Word uses paragraphs), but the style remains consistent.
4. Intellisense. Like predictive text for your phone, the VB Editor attempts to divine what you’re trying to do. You don’t have to remember a specific object or property – the Editor will attempt to help you through that. Crucial for those who don’t want to have print-outs of programming vocabulary.
5. VBA scripts can be automated or called on demand. Say, for instance, that I want a specific format to be applied to a word. Let’s say that every time I type “government,” I want it highlighted in red and black with devil ears on the side. I can have the program do that formatting every time it sees “government,” or I can have that program called at the press of a button. Your call.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Word, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Excel, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with VBA for Outlook, look here for more.

If you’re looking to start with PowerPoint or Access, don’t. While they work just the same, PPT and Access are not as easy to code given their nature. Word, Excel or Outlook would be better for first attempts.

Enjoy…

From time to time, it amuses me to extend my prophecies from the general “state of affairs” sort of postings to a style that might be known as “wisdom from the mountains.” I find myself in such an evening tonight.

Below, in referencing the sage analysis of Mr. Rajan, I mused that education will continue to have a disproportionate effect on the job prospects of many Americans as we continue to drift toward a service economy.  I believe that many service workers will benefit from having programming knowledge of any sort. My reasons are as follows:

1. We are increasingly a computer-based economy. Few (to no) offices are computer-less, and most tasks that were done manually are now keyed into a computer. You know all this, so let’s move on.
2. Programming demonstrates a control over a computer far beyond that of the average employee. If you and I have equal communication skills, are equally well-liked by our co-workers, have comparable intelligence but I can control my work tool better, who has a stronger set of skills? It’s the difference between using a hammer or using a nail gun, if we have an equal knowledge of architecture.
3. Programming might just get you out of having to go into the office. Let us say that you demonstrate epic productivity in the office, via well-executed programming skills. Who is better positioned to apply to work from home – you, or your co-worker who always looks like he’s struggling to stay afloat? You, of course. Which leads me to my next point..
4. Programming can help you eliminate stress. Let us say that you periodically receive an email with invoices from a supplier. And let us say that you always have to save these invoices to a certain folder before processing. What if you could program your email application to just pull the attachments out and save them without you having to deal with it? Wouldn’t that save you, say, 15 seconds an email? If you’re getting 40 of those a week, every week – that’s a lot of seconds saved. Clearly, you can come up with your own ideas here.

The typical stigma is that someone who knows how to program must be a special kind of computer geek who prefers to sit in a lab and not talk to anyone all day. Yet, everyone respects said computer geek because he churns out a fine product and makes all the stuff work around the office. THEREFORE, if you could combine his skill-set with your innate ability to win friends and influence people – well then, you have won yourself a promotion.

“But Prophet!” say thee. “How would I learn to program? I cannot go back to school right now and I don’t have time after work to learn this myself.”

“FEAR NOT,” say I. “Learn VBA instead.”

VBA is a programming language built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook – the entire Office suite. This language can only be fully utilized by individuals running Windows and MS Office – which I imagine is most of your corporate lives. For the rest of you, sorry. You can learn something else.

VBA stands for “Visual BASIC for Applications.” It was initially designed as a training language for new programmers, but has since been fully integrated into Office as a customization tool. Allow me to get you started..

1. Open Word or Excel. Type a phrase for some dummy text. Then find your “Macro Editor,” which will be in a different place if you’re using Office 2003 or 2007.
2. Click Record Macro. Then, do something to the text. Highlight it, bold it, delete it. Go crazy. Then Stop Recording.
3. Make some more dummy text. Then go to Macros, and run your Macro. BAM. It will repeat the exact same stuff you just recorded, automatically. “HOLY CRAP,” you say. “I JUST PROGRAMMED.”
4. Then you say “wait, Prophet. I thought programming was all codes and variables and suchlike.” Well, you see, it is. Microsoft just created the code for you.
5. Hit Alt+F11 on your keyboard, and the VBA Editor will pop up. Then you shall see your mystical “code.” Voila. You have programme.

Granted, these are only the most basic (pun?) examples. Office allows you to create those little automated fragments of code, but you can get into much greater detail if you learn the language. This is an area where I, being a generous man, will gladly start you off on the path. If you wish for further direction in these matters, say it in the comments.

Who knows? Maybe one day, your job will depend on it.

Raghuram Rajan, the former chief economist of the IMF and a Chicago professor, has a completely different take on the U.S. recession. There are different reasons for the global recession – not all of them tied to the fact that the U.S. economy is just freaking huge – but his explanation is fantastic.

I’ll summarize Mr. Rajan’s article:

1. Wages have been growing much faster for workers in the 90th percentile of the wage distribution than those in the 50th percentile. Technology has changed rapidly since then, and growth reached fever pitch in the ’90s. Those who had the necessary skills – or the education necessary to learn those skills – could advance. If all you had to offer the American economy was the strength of your back, your job got outsourced. Just look at the chart here. If you’ve got a professional degree, you only have a 2.3% chance of being unemployed. If you only have a high school degree, that’s 9.7%.
2. Rajan: “The everyday consequence for the middle class is a stagnant paycheck and growing job insecurity. Politicians feel their constituents’ pain, but it is hard to improve the quality of education, for improvement requires real and effective policy change in an area where too many vested interests favor the status quo. Moreover, any change will require years to take effect, and therefore will not address the electorate’s current anxiety.”
3. Thus, politicians opted instead to make credit easy to come by. Rather than the middle class utilizing the new credit facilities to go back to school, they bought houses. And keep in mind that the ease of credit was aided by Fannie and Freddie, but it can’t be blamed totally on them – Glass-Steagall had to be repealed as well.
4. Rajan: “The problem, as often is the case with government policies, was not intent. It rarely is. But when lots of easy money pushed by a deep-pocketed government comes into contact with the profit motive of a sophisticated, competitive, and amoral financial sector, matters get taken far beyond the government’s intent.”

Before all is said and done, we will witness the U.S. in decline in a global economy that knows how to educate its populace. Unless, of course, the government takes the steps to improve the long-term educational capabilities of our fine nation. And for all that Mr. Obama has done wrong, he at least has not wholesale supported the teachers’ union as I expected. Union-busting will help, but America had better be emotionally ready to stop “blaming the teacher” for everything that has gone wrong. The baby boomer generation supported lower expectations of their children at school and grade inflation – something that will need to go away as well.

Oh, and if you’re in the workforce now, you’d better start educating yourself on something you don’t know how to do. Chances are, your job will depend on it one day.

"Market sentiment"

Congratulations, good Republicans, you terrified the nation with talk of “deflation” and “1932″ and various things of that nature. All the while, your various and sundry discussions of market panic drove investors into things like Treasury bills and U.S. dollars, allowing the Good President Obama to continue his spending plans at any cost.

Let me tell you, sirs, that on a classical level, austerity should not result in anything but epic pain for investors. Yet, in a contradiction to my previous post, I am going to condone the use of austerity in the name of market sentiment.

In a move that doesn’t make any damn sense whatsoever, Americans are begging and pleading for less money. Indeed, I think many of them are willing to take personal hits to their own pension plans, provided that the unions take hits to theirs (granted, I would have thought that actually owning a company like GM would be an embarrassing enough hit, but whatever). I foresee, much in the same way that Democrats took Congress in 2006 after Mr. Bush had proven himself to be a fantastic jogger but not much of a president, that Republicans of the “Paul” variety will come into Congress in spades. Not that there will be enough of them to do foolish things like get rid of the Federal Reserve, but perhaps they shall make a stir.

After said Republicans offer a referendum on the Good President Obama’s fiscal policy, Mr. Obama will finally turn out to not be that bad of a president after all. Rather, I imagine he will turn out to actually be a true tight-budgeter, and will welcome the inevitable “corrections” to his earlier policies. Thus, Mr. Obama will be re-elected in 2012, just in time for the world to end.

He'll still be here. Don't worry.

All these things being said, I believe our most pressing issues in the economy can be solved with austerity. Our economy is run by right-leaning individuals with anger in their hearts (read: corporate CEOs and various smaller business leaders), while the government is run by political science majors who are quite sure they know what is best for the world. It is unfortunate, but the economy is currently being held hostage by pissed-off baby boomers who lack the requisite courage to stick their neck on the line and make some deals, Cornelius Vanderbilt style.

Unrelated.

If an austerity pitch injects confidence into business, then maybe our people will start putting some of that cash to work. It is good for the health of the country that consumers are paying down debt and not spending at the moment, but now it’s time to really give the people what they want. Britain’s doing it. Why can’t we?

I have recently been asked questions regarding BP as an investment choice. And, for those of you who don’t know, I don’t just randomly get asked questions about investing in large oil companies – I teach an investments class to undergraduates and MBAs. Once again, this information is not provided to you by a registered broker-dealer, nor am I advising you to buy or sell any securities. You do so at your own risk, and at the risk that God may kill a kitten if you do.

BP is currently speaking to sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East and a few companies in Singapore. The company is worried that with market value severely depressed, another oil major will attempt to gobble them up. A sovereign wealth investment could fight that off. Sovereign wealth may reject the investment option, having been burned by Citigroup earlier. Or they may reject it and the stock price falls anyway – blocking a takeover that would force a premium price. Consider that Investment Risk #1, in the book of the Prophet.

Consider also that the well is still not capped. Investment Risk #2.

Consider that the relief well may fail. Investment Risk #3.

The fourth, and perhaps scariest risk, is that the seafloor is compromised beyond repair. If that’s the case, we might have to drill multiple relief wells in an attempt to cap the well. Worst case scenario – this Mount Everest of oil fields just has to empty into the Gulf. Investment Risk #4.

A special note on Investment Risk #4: Warren Buffett used to say that he wouldn’t invest in anything he didn’t understand. I don’t understand geology, and BP is restricting a lot of that information anyway.

I also have not forgotten the Administration’s earlier attempt at climate change legislation, via cap-and-trade and various alternative energy deals. Let’s face it: the BP oil spill is a great marketing tool for any sort of alternative energy plan. I also have complete faith in the Good President Obama’s skill to lampoon the British company with epic lawsuits, much in the same way they did with Goldman Sachs in the SEC case. These things are well within the scope of a Chicago politician. Thus, Investment Risk #5 is the ability of the federal government to make an example out of BP in order to promote its own ends.

In short, I consider the bankruptcy risks of BP to be more than I care to stomach. I prefer companies like RIG or HAL, if you wanted to get in on oil spill plays (/enjoy pure, unmitigated evil). But that’s all mere opinion.

Some of you individuals here may be of the opinion that I am merely a strange bleeding-heart liberal, in favor of such things as “the environment.” I am no such thing. Rather, I am a staunch pragmatist with the intention of achieving the desired objective by the correct means to do so.

Our current objective, as a country, appears to be “growth.” It seems that we have the desire to “grow” our way out of this little meltdown and reach a place where we may all eat delicious cake, provided to us by willing Chinese folk.

Mushroom cake says "grow"

Yet I must clearly remind you individuals daily that the cake is a lie.

Oh, I know what you’re saying, good people. You’re saying “EXACTLY, good Prophet! It’s that durn Obammer gone take err jobs and give em to the illegals and give em free healthcare! All cuz uh them dam liberrulz.” I translate your vernacular, of course.

I agree that the Good President Obama is not pursuing the soundest course of action here. Yet, honestly, what would you have him do to stop outsourcing? A recent NYTimes article (cited here – you have to register to read it) stated that factories have job openings available but can’t find anyone with the technical know-how to work the machines. $30-$40K jobs here, and all you have to do is perform calculations on the level of ninth grade math. They can’t fill the job vacancies. The government can’t fix that in the time frame demanded. The government can’t create jobs at the level Americans seem to want.

And, as you will see in the comments, many people suggested that the factories should take the time to train those employees themselves. That costs money. Costs impact stock prices. Everybody wants their retirement portfolios to stay up. Therefore, no costs, and no training.

You must see what I’m driving at, good people. The nature of our existing society is to find the short-term fix. Patch it up. And, if there are any short-term consequences, “obviously” it was done wrong.

If you need further convincing of this, I refer you to this WSJ article from September 30, 2008. If you don’t remember that date specifically, it’s the day after the bailout failed. Yes – in case you forgot – the bailout failed before it was passed. I remember this time vividly, as I worked for an investment bank at the time. We got the news of the bailout’s failure and watched the stock market plunge 9.1%. Panic mode set in. Representatives had received phone calls from constituents on September 29 saying “don’t pass the bailout” and then received calls from those same constituents on September 30 saying “why didn’t you pass the bailout?!?!?! My retirement money is all gone!!!” We don’t do “long-term vision” very well.

If you want a short-term fix, you have to stimulate the economy with taxpayer dollars. If you want to stop patching things up, you’re going to have to rip them apart first.

This is what the Republicans don’t want to sell, for fear that it might hurt their re-election chances. Austerity is going to flipping hurt and in all the ways Republicans don’t want it to. Defense? 20% of the national budget. Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP? 21%. Social Security? 20%. (figures here) That sucks when older 2008 voters were more likely to vote Republican and the party platform is expressly in favor of Reagan-style military spending. And, while the Tea Party has claimed to support spending cuts, I have yet to see a unified front to cut spending on any one of those three items. We can’t be austere without attacking the largest parts of our budget.

I am in favor of austerity, as I believe it will result in a bright future for me and my kind. And, because I like shorting stocks. That’s what will need to be done when austerity drops the market “a few G’s”. A few lean years of pain, where Americans will have to tighten their belts and grit their teeth through it, and then we’ll be purged.

But, if you want your retirement portfolio to keep going up, I suggest you stop reading IntelligencePlease.com and go follow Mr. Krugman.

More to come. Why be austere without a plan afterward – which, of course, I have.