AllupInyourBiz

I saw this graphic today on Animal New York, and it got me thinking.

The amount of money represented in the graphic above, is one billion dollars. One trillion dollars is one thousand times what you see in the picture. That’s a lot of cash. Ok, now that you have the mental image of one trillion dollars, try to put it into a practical example. I hate Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh as much as the next guy, but Rove has published a couple of articles recently that have really gotten under my skin (not because of the author). The reason they bothered me, is because the content of the articles, points to all of the discrepancies of the campaigning Obama, vs. Commander in Chief Obama. Today, a different Carl, sent me the link to an WSJ Op. Ed. piece authored by Rove. A lot of it was repeat content of an article published earlier this week, also authored by Rove, dealing with bait and switch. But the part of today’s article that blew my mind, was the following:

Not even Team Obama can forestall unpleasant reality. And among those America now faces is Mr. Obama adding $3.2 trillion to the national debt in his first 20 months and 11 days in office, eclipsing the $2.9 trillion added during the Bush presidency’s entire eight years.

Whoa! $2.9T is a lot any way you slice it. But to Bush’s credit, it was spread over 8 years, including all of the 911 and war crap. The Obama administration is a runaway train and the boiler fire is being stoked by pallets full of money. 20 months?!!! $3.2 trillion?!! Ok, so now take the money in the picture, multiply it by 1 thousand, then multiply that by 3.2. It may just be my limited imagination, but I’m having a hard time even picturing the image of 1 thousand times what is in the graphic. Was this really the kind of change that we were looking for?

Former Governor of MA, and GOP figure in the recent election, submitted an OP Ed piece for the NY Times this week. The article addressed the floundering domestic automotive industry. Romney is a self made independently wealthy individual (Bain Capital) whose father was a Auto industry mogul before becoming a political in Michigan. You would think that these things would qualify Romney to speak on the topic of solving the problems of domestic auto producers. Indeed, Romney is qualified. But Romney’s article “let Detroit go bankrupt” does not delve into any sort of complex strategy based on his expertise as a Private Equity genius. Instead, Romney merely asserts that decisions should be made using common sense. Hmmm, imagine that. Romney astutely points out that “Getting more and more pay for less and less work is a dead-end street.” Romney also suggests that bailing out the floundering auto makers will only prolong the inevitable. I couldn’t agree more.

It wasn’t enough indication of what the concerned involved citizens wanted, when they contacted their respective House Representatives and told them not to pass an economic rescue plan, at ratio of 10 to 1. Yes, that’s right, it is an “economic rescue” plan, not a bailout bill. The president was offended that the media kept using the negative term “bailout.” He said that he liked to think of it more as a rescue of a a ship (the economy) that is in distress. That is probably how his aides explained  the measure to him (or drew a picture for him, illustrating a ship being rescued). I think that analogy pretty much sums up the extent of Dubya’s grasp on macroeconomics. To him, it is like a big ship that needs to be rescued. Unfortunately, the majority of our elected officials also have a very rudimentary understanding of complex economic dealings. This is extremely evident by the Senate’s actions today. Instead of letting the bill die, after it failed in the House, they are slapping some tax breaks on it, and a measure to raise the level to which a single account can be insured by FDIC (a program which many banks have not even been paying their premiums for), and are going to try to ram it through anyway. It is because the Senators recieve so much campaign funding from Wall Street firms? It is because they really think it is going to help? Is it because they would rather have the less sophisticated voters think they tried, instead of explaining to them the it isn’t the government’s place to fix everything? I guess we will find out, in the debates that are scheduled to start today at 12:30 Eastern Time. If you are interested, you can stream them from C-span2. The vote is scheduled to take place “after sundown.” If you are interested to see the language of the bill, you can download a PDF of the draft here. Is it too much to ask, for the senators to use history as an example of what happens when you try to rush into a legislative fix on a capitalist economy? Maybe it is too much. But I don’t think that it should be too much to ask them to give heed to wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people who elected them to office. That, after all, IS their job.