Updated from the original blog entry
The Anti-Candidate's Position on the ECONOMY
The economy runs on money, which we don't have a lot of. We have enough, at the moment, and if we had more we could put it to good use -- like paying off the credit card debt from our unfortunate period of under-employment in 2006-07. (With respect to this topic, you are welcome to Contribute to the Anti-Campaign.)
As for the overall economy, things cost what they cost. Many things cost too much, but these days that seems to be a function more of the declining value of the dollar than anything else. Case in point: the price of oil on the world market in the 2008 timeframe rose about twice as much in dollars as it did in euros, because dollars became less valuable than euros when they had been about 1-for-1.
What does that mean for us? It means not only are we paying more for oil, but for everything else that comes from overseas -- which amounts to a whole lot of everything.
In our day-to-day lives, we don't think about the value of the dollar on the world market that much. We should, when that value affects the dollars in our pockets.
We got into this pickle because the Federal Reserve (note to self: at least try to read the book on the Fed you bought all those years ago), in a knee-jerk reaction to the credit debacle, started lowering interest rates willy-nilly. Oh, great, we -- the collective we -- thought, now people who got in trouble borrowing too much can borrow even more. It didn't occur to us that the dollar, thus weakened, would fall on foreign currency markets and make rising commodity prices rise even faster. Those of us with fixed-rate mortgages (many of us) who for now are able to make our payments (i.e., most homeowners in general) are getting smacked around by these prices because the Fed decided to reduce the pressure on the very few people who didn't take the time or make the effort or have the brains to understand what they had signed up for.
So if you got a sub-prime mortgage, and you got burned, we hope you're happy about the Fed cutting interest rates so that all of us could buy gasoline at (then) $4/gallon. Amazingly, that high price did not last, but our fiscal policies do not seem to have become any sounder.
Bottom line for the Anti-Campaign:
- We're not rich. We'd like to try it sometime, but the "tax the rich" rhetoric we hear all the time from one end of the political spectrum kind of cuts down on the incentive.
- We won't be releasing our tax returns; we'd rather you laugh with us than at us.
- Finally, money is a tool; it's always good to have more tools in your toolbox; and when you loan this tool -- whether to the government or anybody else -- good luck getting it back.
So if your local tax assessor or your county treasurer or your state comptroller needs to be replaced, and you're not satisfied with the slate of candidates, feel free to vote for the GrayMan. We couldn't do any more damage than the so-called experts.