| Date: | October 7, 2009 |
| User: | InflationUS |
| Title: | Working Class Americans Panhandling for Gas – You Got Change! |
| Description: | Proof there is no economic recovery. |
Here is a pretty crazy video they posted today, of course take it with a grain of salt as there is always somebody at the gas station asking for change. Still the perception is the economy is on the edge and though you might not see it on the news, all of the national polls are indicative of a sense of panic or foreboding if you will.
It is surprising that the news will run a poll of the economic barometer of the country and in spite of the 80% who are very worried about the economy you still have the news outlets and public officials talking about the fact that we are in a jobless recovery. I am unsure if the term jobless recovery is a new invention or somehow an old term that was reinvented, but at this point I think that we are yearning for the feel good 70′s and Jimmy Carter.
In fact though I am strongly libertarian, I am beginning to think that Carter who is probably more dismissed as incompetent than Bush was more or less correct with his economic policy. He certainly wasn’t aggressive, nor was the Fed in pursuing destructive interest rate manipulation.
I am interested to read more about Jimmy Carter’s economic policy (more specifically his Fed Chief’s) leading up to the election of Paul Volcker who is generally well regarded for his work while at the Chairmanship in spite of his being a Democrat.
From Wikipedia “Paul Volcker, a Democrat,[5] was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve in August 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and reappointed in 1983 by President Ronald Reagan.[6]
Volcker’s Fed is widely credited with ending the United States’ stagflation crisis of the 1970s. Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983.
The federal funds rate, which had averaged 11.2% in 1979, was raised by Volcker to a peak of 20% in June 1981. The prime rate rose to 21.5% in ’81 as well.”
Volcker went on to be fired by Reagan for not being more aggressive. In the end however there is no such thing as a good Fed Chairman as the entire government office should be done away with and fiscal discipline re-instituted. Though the highs won’t be so high the low’s won’t be potentially lethal. In this age of uneven globalization we cannot play with our currency anymore. In fact, if we were not the national currency this would not even be a discussion.
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