According to the AP:

A Commerce Department report on Thursday showed total retail sales edged down 0.1 percent…Excluding motor vehicles and parts, sales fell 0.6 percent in July…

Analysts had expected a boost to retail sales from the government's "cash for clunkers" program and predicted a 0.7 percent advance in overall July sales.

They said the program…had pulled spending away from other sectors.

Just shocking that people took advantage of the government's give-away of cash and spent some of their own money to buy the cars and thus did not spend that money elsewhere.

In other words:

• Cash for clunkers took money (borrowed from the future) and gave it to others (wealth distribution).
• People took money the they would have spent on other items anyway and spent it on cars (so little change in total money they spent).

According to the Pew Center for Research: “66% of those under age 30 voted for Barack Obama”.

Just a brief word to those 66% - you are going to pay the price.

No matter what the shape of the final “Stimulus” package, GenX, GenY, the Millenniums, their children and grandchildren will pay the price, both financially (inflation to pay down the debit) and in their standard of living.

So 10, 15, 20, 30 years from now, when you are paying the price, do not put all the blame on the acts of the Baby-Boomers in helping to create this mess and voting for the Stimulus – after all, you overwhelming voted for the man who wants this Stimulus.

The “Inter-Generational Wealth Transfer Act” aka “the Stimulus bill” needs a complete rethinking. 

The Framers of the Constitution intentionally designed a central government that was slow. They saw a power that could respond quickly as a threat to liberty. 

They were right and wrong. Even under the most dire of circumstances, for example the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the government could not mount a serious response for almost two years.

Because of this and the timing of November’s election, the Federal government has been slow to response to the economic crisis. Now, as they are planning another response, “the Stimulus”, they are already too late.

While much pain is being and will be endured, the crisis has to some extend passed and to another extent evolved. Look at Goldman Sachs already planning on repaying the government, or the drop in home prices which has caused a predictable increase in home sales.

Government deficit spending is not needed; it risks inflation and is just a transfer of wealth from the future (GenX and GenY and their kids) to the present (mostly baby-boomers).

What Congress should pass and the President sign is a bill providing the Federal government with the tools it may need in the future to quickly address an economic crisis. This could include provisions for government spending, but not specific spending now. It should be written so that the President would have certain authorities, subject to an up or down vote by Congress on enacting each as the President requests.

One day I left a saw out in my yard. A kid walking by, took the saw and used it to cut down my neighbor’s tree. I felt really bad that some dumb kid sawed down my neighbor’s nice tree, and even though I had left the saw out, there was nothing I, my neighbor, or even the kid could do to put the tree pieces back to make a living tree.

The economy will get better. It may be painful in the short-term, but much better for all long-term.

The housing bubble was just that and it burst. People were buying houses with money they did not have, knowing (hoping) that they would be able to sell the houses at a profit. Banks and financial institutions went along and leant the people money. When the merry-go-round stopped, everyone was thrown off.

But, DUH, housing prices are dropping and when prices drop, people buy more.

With all the “toxic” assets out there, banks stopped lending money. Short-term government loans/backing was needed to get the economy going again and there are signs it is beginning to stir.

Any part of any stimulus package that does not impact the economy within the next 12 months is not a stimulus - it is just government spending on a grand scale.

Doing nothing may not have been an option, but doing everything is just plan crazy.

Even forgetting about the inflationary impact of huge government borrowing, GenX, GenY and their children and grandchildren will pay the price, both financially and in their standard of living.

The panic of late last summer and early this year should not be allowed to cause the government to totally ruin the economic future of the nation (burn down the forest).

GM and Chrysler are getting a $13.4 billion loan to keep going; AIG $150 billion; then there is Fannie and Freddie; the financial industry gets a $700 billion bailout; and the Democrats may be talking about as much as a $1 trillion economic stimulus package over the next two years.

But wait, The Liberal New York Times in an editorial on December 21, 2008 called for:

• “End production of the Air Force’s F-22…The net annual savings: about $3 billion.”
• “Cancel the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyer…Cutting the last two could save more than $3 billion a year.”
• “Halt production of the Virginia class sub…Net savings: $2.5 billion.”
• “Pull the plug on the Marine Corps’s V-22 Osprey…Net savings: $2 billion to 2.5 billion.”
• “Halt premature deployment of missile defense…for a net savings of nearly $5 billion.”
• “Trim the active-duty Navy and Air Force…Reducing the Navy by one carrier group and the Air Force by two air wings would save about $5 billion a year.”

According to The Times:

“The cuts above could save $20 billion to $25 billion a year, which could be better used as follows:

o       Increase the size of the ground force.

o       Pay for the Navy’s needed littoral combat ships.

o       Resupply the National Guard and the Reserves.”

Now just based on the editorial, some of the suggestions would seem to make sense, except that accepting The Liberal New York Times as a reliable source on military needs and spending is like thinking Saddam Hussein never used WMDs.

Gee, I wonder what is really more important to the future of the country: AIG or national security?

Without debating the merits of the specific suggestions, the most telling comment in the editorial was:

“Halt production of the Virginia class sub…The program is little more than a public works project to keep the Newport News, Va., and Groton, Conn., naval shipyards in business.”

Almost as an aside, one could discuss what the future might hold if we did not have these shipyards to build naval vessels?

What does The Liberal New York Times think is the point of the $1 trillion economic stimulus package? Certainly not public works projects!

I guess the liberal view of the stimulus is that it is to get Americans back to work and improve the Nation’s infrastructure everywhere except in the defense industry.