Tom Blumer, writing at Pajamas Media about the administration’s “alarmingly irresponsible” rhetoric.
That pessimism and years of dreary stage-setting business reporting, even during the 2003-2007 expansion, largely explain why consumer confidence is at the lowest level in its 40-year history. It isn’t because the current economy is the worst in 40 years — at least not yet. December’s unemployment rate of 7.2% is less than or equal to every single month in 1992, 1981-1984, and 1975-1976. Inflation, which hit 13% in 1979 and 1980, barely exists. The economy has had larger single-quarter contractions four different times in the past four decades.
. . . If Obama and his people keep on talking down the economy, and their gloom keeps consumer and business confidence in the pits, many anticipated orders won’t materialize and other existing orders will be canceled. If that occurs, businesses will be left sitting on merchandise they can’t move. This will lead to large price reductions, production cutbacks, and more job losses. The economy will contract even further.
On top of that, the administration’s proposed “stimulus” solution is wholly inadequate at best, and counterproductive at worst.
A January 28 Wall Street Journal editorial estimated that only about 12% of the plan’s $800-billion-plus price tag “can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.” That editorial also cited a litany of items whose only purpose is to address “just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last 40 years.” Many of them would get in the way of an economic recovery, as they would enable or encourage people to stay out of the workforce longer than they otherwise would have. Finally, most of whatever stimulus there is won’t get into the economy until 2010 or later. Thomas Sowell compares it to “mailing a letter to the fire department to tell them that your house is on fire.” Across-the-board tax cuts, which would have an immediately stimulating effect, are nowhere to be found.
Well, as long as The Lightweight Worker is at it, he might as well go for a full-on depression.
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