One Hundred Seventeen: Durbin's Recession

In a speech at the Union League Club in Chicago on January 21, Senator Dick Durbin advocated delaying spending cuts by the government until the recession is over. The exact quote was: "If we don't get out of this recession, we are not ever going to be able to have serious deficit reduction." Dick's ignorance of economics is appalling and profound. First, all of the credible organizations which track and analyze recessions and growth in the US economy acknowledge that the recession which began in late 2007 ended in June of 2009. Second, Dick does not understand that the recessions are a natural part of economic cycles, and are caused in large part by excessive spending and risk-taking. When people and governments spend more than they take in and produce, there will eventually be a day of reckoning. The 2007-2009 recession was caused by government sponsored and supported inflation in the real estate market. Consumers were encouraged to use their perceived equity in real estate, and to a lesser extent, stocks, to augment income. Money center banks were complicit in this economic insanity. These large financial institutions, again encouraged by Dick and his buddies, were falling over each other to make loans to people who could never pay the loans back, secured by assets which were valued to keep rising indefinitely in a straight line, contrary to all economic history and laws.

Now, Dick says we must keep spending money we don't have, so that we can eventually pay back loans we should never have taken out. This kind of thinking can only come from politicians who produce nothing of value, and see the rest of us as a bottomless source tax revenue.

One Hundred Sixteen: My Two Cents on Tucson

It's a tragedy. Enough said, and enough already with the shallow, meaningless, self-serving blather from talking heads and political welfare recipients. There have been countless innocent victims of tragic violence in this country, and none of them have received the outpouring of media empathy which Tucson has inspired. Obviously the reason for treating Tucson differently is that a Congressperson was shot. Why a Congressperson deserves this level of attention and a faceless office worker does not is a question which none of the talking heads will ask.

It's a tragedy. Leave it at that.