Economy & Budget

Since waste is the word of the week in Washington — along with "prostitute" and even "cookie" — let's put some taxpayer expenditures in context.

A junket in Vegas we all paid for, courtesy of the General Services Administration, is making headlines this week as Congress tried grilling GSA regional commissioner Jeffrey Neely about the lavish, $823,000 conference he arranged for GSA employees in 2010 that also included his wife and friends and turned out to be one of several trips he and his wife arranged on Uncle Sam's dime. Neely, whose emails told more than we need to know, pleaded the Fifth.

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I recently wrote here that Jesus would oppose the Paul Ryan budget because of his harsh cuts that would seriously hurt the poor. Now, as The Hill reports in an important story, the Catholic bishops have criticized the Ryan budget for exactly the same reason I did. Supporters of Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Ron Paul and House Republican leaders should offer a major apology, not to me, but to the poor. My suggestion that Jesus would oppose the Ryan budget was rooted in the teaching of Jesus and Christian theology. Of course I do not know what Jesus would say or do for sure, but now the Catholic bishops have spoken.

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For a very long time part of the American Dream has been the ability to one day retire. Looking forward to a day of getting up in the morning when your body awakens you, rather than an alarm clock. Many of us long for the ability to engage in projects of our choosing and see it through to the end.

Deep down, many long for the time to visit and spend quality time with their grandchildren and other family members, which is a blessing that unfortunately many will have to forgo because of their economic situation. It is imperative that we begin to try and find ways to restore this vital part of our nation’s heritage.

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I fully respect the Catholic faith and sincerity of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and do not question that he believes his budget is consistent with his faith, as he stated in an excellent story in The Hill. But, with all due respect, I must suggest that Jesus would oppose the Ryan budget. Jesus did not teach government preferences for the most wealthy, cruel punishment for the most poor, attacks on programs that benefit women, decimating cuts that hurt the poorest children and the sanctification of greed in economics. Ron Paul and Paul Ryan may believe in Ayn Rand and Austrian economists, but Jesus taught a much different ethic: those who have the most should not game the system to get more but should help those who have the least, including selling their possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor.

Let’s keep Ayn Rand in the past. Let’s keep the Austrian economists in the dusty and outdated books of failed theories. Let’s keep Jesus out of the business of helping the rich and punishing the poor.

The New York Times reported this morning that a number of liberal Democratic politicians want to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to as much as $10.

This proposed increase is in the midst of the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression and stubbornly high unemployment. Under classical economic theory, an increase in wages leads to decrease in employment. So an increase in the minimum wage would cause the unemployment rate to increase and national income to decline.

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Several prognosticators — Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Jim Grant, Harry Dent — get it right when the Overlords say, “Nobody could have guessed stocks would drop.” Said here in September 2008, I use Tibetan prayer flags: Dragon, Wind Horse, Snow Lion, earth, water, fire, air, sky. They represent the life cycle of the individual, the age, the universe; fire of youth, green of mature adulthood, golden years of a well-invested life returning to shadow. We have seen our seasons. We have entered shadow.

I write here frequently about the Strauss & Howe cycle and have customized it: There is no such thing really as a civilization, there are only “post-war periods.” Each lasts approximately 65 years and goes on break for 20 years. We are at year 65. Two elements I use: the Krebs factor and the Elliot Wave. The first refers to Maynard G. Krebs, the sidekick of Dobie Gillis. Dobie Gillis was the personification of the rising American Dream; bright, blond, good-looking and most likely to succeed. Maynard G. Krebs, his bongo-playing beatnik sidekick. In psychological terms, Krebs is Gillis’s dark persona. Read more...

The Democrats are using fear more than hatred since the House passed the Ryan budget along party lines. Many people do not need to be persuaded of the details — fear is enough for them to take the Democrat side. Ryan is “changing Medicare as we know it,” they say, and “change” of any kind is suddenly an automatic disqualifier.

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The problem for the White House Council on Women and Girls is that women and girls are doing too well. It’s a tricky political spot for Democrats — to be screaming about a “war on women” — at the same time that they acknowledge all the ways women are succeeding.
 
As the White House recognizes in its newest report on America’s women, women make up 50 percent of the workforce, are increasingly the breadwinners in the family, and make up the majority of students in colleges and graduate schools.

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Mark Twain famously misquoted British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”

The reported unemployment numbers prove the validity of the quote, even as the source is in dispute.
 
According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March, there were 31,000 fewer people employed than in February, yet the politically useful unemployment rate went down to 8.2 percent: a decline that is sure to be played up in campaign commercials as evidence that the Obama economy is recovering.

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In 1933, private ownership of gold was outlawed by the U.S. government. As Yogi Berra would say, "Deja vu all over again." Americans who are privately acquiring gold, mostly in coins, might have a surprise coming.

Based upon history I will encourage you to digest this scenario: The federal government will purchase your coins, bullions, etc., possibly excluding jewelry under a certain dollar amount at the prevailing market price of gold. It will become a crime to own gold. You will sell your gold to the government in exchange for paper or electronic dollars. What then will happen to the price of gold after the deadline for private ownership has expired?

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