Crazy Uncle George's Blog
Previous Entry
Back to Blog Archive
Next Entry
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Economic Q&A
It seems like some whiners are unhappy with the state of the economy, and while I'm not entirely sure who the governor of this is, I did just grab some tacos the other day with Kevin Warsh and Elizabeth Duke (no relation to Daisy -- I checked), who are both governors of some state called the Federal Reserve. So I think I'm qualified to answer some questions that you may have about the economy and the plans I'd outlined in my speech to the nation. Because it's like we say in Texas, you can wrap a bank in newspaper and it keeps the doctor away. Before I go into the economy, though, I should tell you that I updated a couple galleries and I'll probably do some more after I find that governor. I hope he's better than that one governor who keeps telling me about looking in Russians' windows from her house.
So I added some pictures to Ziyi Zhang's page. Well, it used to be a section. Now she has enough for a full page. The exciting news, though, is that the Holly Weber gallery, already by far the biggest on the page, is even bigger, at 297 and with a lot of ones I'm going to add but still have to organize a little more. I know I've been pretty bad about updating the page these past couple months, but I had a special incentive, an E-mail from Ms. Weber herself. Apparently, now she's deposed royalty from Nigeria and needs me to use money that I've won in the South African lottery to help her launder money of her own. Seriously, though, I know Holly Weber's E-mail address when I see it, so unless someone managed to send outgoing mail through her server, the following pictures are courtesy of the breathtaking Holly Weber:
Note that the buttons on the page that shows the pictures will work off of her entire gallery, not just the ones I've shown here. I don't really have a way of splitting those apart other than how I just did it. I don't know who her new photographer is or just how much she's working out, but I love these new pictures. Maybe it's just how I think she's designed for lingerie, but it's enough that one of her new ones is now my #1. (I rank all the shots so you don't have to dig through the galleries.) I added more than just the ones above, so go visit the actual gallery.
So without further ado, I'll field some questions about my economic address:
- Q: With the government already in record amounts of debt, how will it pay for the $700 billion banking bailout?
A: We'll pay for it the same way we've been paying for everything else: by having the Fed print more money. It worked for that Weimar Government in Germany back in the old days.
- Q: Will the Federal Reserve's money-printing schemes turn the dollar into Monopoly money?
A: Don't be ridiculous. It already is.
- Q: Why has the price of gold been soaring lately? Does it show a lack of confidence in the economy?
A: No, it shows how great it is. Everyone wants to buy their gold now, knowing that all y'all are gonna get rich soon and be willing to pay more for gold.
- Q: How does the government know which companies to bail out?
A: Some companies are classified "too big to fail." We know that they're going to be reliable about staying on top and making the money back for the government. We know because they're big enough that any time they're not running their company well and losing market share or shareholder money, the government will put a bunch of capital back into them to make sure they stay on top.
- Q: How do we know to put confidence in your administration when they got us into this mess?
A: We've got talented people working for you. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson used to be the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, and left in May 2006 when the stock closed at $150.95 per share. Now it's only at $135.50, so even without adjusting for inflation, you can tell that they must have been doing something right back when he was there.
- Q: What's the difference between core inflation and headline inflation?
A: Core inflation is when you eat too many Volcano Tacos and lose your six-pack with a bunch of flab in front of it. Headline inflation is what they do at the New York Times when they go and print bad stuff about me and don't mention my sweet, new boogie board even once in the banner headline.
- Q: Why do the government's numbers about why we're not in a recession rely on inflation assumptions of 1% to 2%?
A: I haven't eaten any Volcano Tacos, so my core hasn't inflated at all. If anything, those assumptions are too conservative.
- Q: Isn't this government money scheme just like the one from the last recession?
A: See, this could have fooled me back in my reckless youth of age 54, but now in my wisdom of age 62, I know better. We're going to do the same thing we did before and expect different results. That's what you call wisdom.
- Q: How do we know that Paulson's plan is the right one?
A: Look, it's like my boy Hank says. We can look back at how we got here, and the historical evidence and all that hoohah, and say that this is exactly what we tried before which didn't work. But we have to get through the night, and this is a time for decisive action, which is a lot more important than what that decisive action is, because I need that to be the Decider. Looking for a new, non-failed plan to be the action would just take up valuable time when we could be using the failed plan and waiting for it to work.
- Q: What do we have to risk by avoiding the swift action of the taxpayer-money bailout?
A: Let's think for a minute about what would have happened if I didn't act quickly enough before and muddled around thinking about what the best solution would be. When we started seeing some trouble with the economy, I could have spent time saying that the economy is something complicated that needs a well-thought out solution, but instead I went with tax cuts, like in the earlier economic problems. I could have sat around thinking about how it didn't work then, but instead I knew that the economy needed a booster immediately, so we shot that thing up and look at it now! And when some guys from Afghanistan flew some planes into some buildings, I knew that we had to act immediately, so I got out my wheel of the Axis of Evil and picked a country to invade. Did I waste time thinking about whether this was the right approach? No, because it was a time for action, and those Muslim guys were out to destroy the values of American capitalism and the American standard of living. And thanks to my quick action, we didn't let them, and we laugh in their faces now.
- Q: Are the Democrats capable of handling the economy?
A: No, the Democrat Party is filled with a bunch of unsavory characters who voted for occupying Iraq and a bunch of military spending for it, plus sending out stimulus checks. They are die-hard supporters of the bailout and are going around the country promising large tax cuts. You can't trust tax-and-spend liberals like the Democrats.
- Q: Why are the Republicans ready to handle the economy?
A: It may be having a little hiccup now, but the Republican philosophy is built on free-market capitalism which works in the long run. When we used the Federal Reserve to pump a bunch of cheap loan money through the economy to push up housing prices and sales, we were showing free-market capitalism at its best. We could have sat around watching prices from the stock bubble deflating and housing prices stay at what people could reasonably pay for them, but instead we had the government lead us out with a big surge of money like good free-market capitalists do. And when we went to Iraq, we spent a bunch of money that the government didn't have on specific contractors to push money through parts of the system the government liked, to show organic markets at their best. And when we sent out stimulus checks, we didn't do the tax-and-spend liberal approach of waiting around letting prices correct themselves. No, we had the government inject money into the system, even money it didn't have, so we could show free-market capitalism working for you. So now, when we want to go give a bunch of money to businesses we picked that were having trouble because they made some bad decisions and couldn't survive on their own, this is the same free-market capitalism that we've been practicing so well for so many decades. You can't take shots at free-market capitalism now when you've seen all it's given you before.
- Q: If the housing prices were much higher than what they should have been before, aren't falling prices a good thing?
A: Considering how much of the housing market is owned by me and John McCain, no.