Orwellian Sense

I have been asked to explain this article and will, though I sincerely do not want to do such a saddening thing. We are in four straight months of Consumer Spending decline, which is still accelerating. Consumer confidence is retreating, the article claims the wave of Layoffs and Cutbacks, though Consumers worry more about the lack of New Hires; the Condition which worries them if they lose their Job. The Orders for Capital Goods dropped 6.2% in October, not particularly worrisome except for the 4% drop in civilian Capital Goods (which excludes aircraft, but aircraft should not be considered civilian because of airport organization). Housing numbers are lousy, down some 7% year over year in Price (I remember a previous Post where I stated that Housing need to drop over 20% because of the runup since 2004; I amazed by how difficult that was going to be). We are backing away from a balloon Boom where far too Many were tied to the balloons, and the experience is scaring Everyone.

The Fed and Treasury generate more despair than hope as well, as they seem to restrict their activities solely to keeping the balloons inflated, rather than normalizing the economic state. Both Paulson and Bernanke remain too close to the Banking system, and don’t seek advise outside of the Communities which brought on the Crisis in the first place. Every action taken has been a effort to protect the Bankers from the Injured Parties (Investors and Depositors), where the Bankers can maintain their own Pay schedules. This level of insulation has already cost the American Taxpayers hundreds of billions of Dollars, and will do nothing for the economy, until the degraded corruption of bad debt is driven from the system along with the management who produced it. We have to move forward, and current Government economic policy will not recognize that Need.

Obama promises a Change, and hopefully, it will come to pass as rational economic policy. I fear for major change, though, as he allowed Everyone to stampede him into rapid choice of economic Team. What is needed in America and the World today consists of a very Public discussion of the current crisis, and the Pick of his economic team could have allowed Obama to open a Public forum to discuss the crisis. As it is, Obama is trapped in a backroom deals format, from which he will likely be incapable from extraction; an entrance which will color the rest of his administration. My only advise to Barrack is to learn two well-known expressions: ‘Do it’ and ‘No'. lgl