Jbrase: Fannie and Freddie don't explain why even bigger housing bubbles developed in a bunch of European countries. It also doesn't explain why there was an equally large bubble in commercial real estate.
I'm not pro-government; I'm pro-growth. But looking at the evidence, there seems to be no growth in the private sector (Where's the hiring, Fortune 500 companies?), and therefore the government should step in and take over. Meritocracy. We'll hire Mr. Private Sector first always, we'll give him Affirmative Action. But if he's not doing his job, we have no choice but to switch over to Mr. Government. The best argument against government is for the private sector to pick up the pace.
Ratcheting up the percentage of folks who work for the government is not a good long term strategy, if one wishes to see much of any real growth down the road. Nor can we afford it. It is not as if this country is way under-taxed. In fact, the US is taxed almost as heavily as many European countries now. As Reverend Wright said in another context far more entertainingly than this iteration will be, the chickens are coming home to roost, and crapping all over the place.
Then what do you suggest? It seems that we are getting crapped on now, and you are talking about the crap that will be falling on my face tomorrow, but I can't hear you because your voice is being drowned out by the crap that is falling on my face today. If you are kicking someone in the face today, and you are telling them about how you are going to kick them in the face tomorrow, what do you think they will be replying? Don't kick me in the face tomorrow, or stop kicking me in the face right now so we can talk rationally about tomorrow?
The point of my post is that I'm open to anything. It's not that I want to ratchet up the percentage of people working for the government or raise taxes. It's not that I want to do
anything in particular, except there is the problem that we have serious economic problems today, and they don't seem to be going away on their own.
