Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Commenter “Troy” posted a great quip on a prior column, it deserves a post of its own:
***
President Barak “Underpants” Obama’s Plan for the Nation:
Step 1: unlimited debt
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Prosperity!
***
Genius!
Joe Doakes
Como Park
Neither Troy nor I are the first to note that Obama’s economic policy resembles this cartoon…
…which is famous among engineers and scientists, but not so much among liberal politicos.
We are now locked into high, unsustainable growth of government forever.
I’m kidding, but some conservative pundits aren’t. Obama’s spending can’t be unsustainable and permanent at the same time.
Republicans claim we can close the deficit without raising taxes which is actually possible and obviously not going to happen. Democrats claim we can close the deficit without raising taxes on the middle class or reforming entitlements which is not even technically possible. The last four years nothing happened to make either party admit they’ve been lying. I hope this election was the thing that will make it safer to tell the truth than to keep lying on enough people’s part to get legislation signed. If I hear Barack Obama say that he’ll veto any legislation that reduces access to Medicare or reduces social security benefits or if I hear John Boehner say that there will be no tax increase heard in the House then I’ll get about as pessimistic about America’s future as partisans have been, conditional on the other party winning its election.
I have the Harris cartoon on a t-shirt. I love that shirt and it still gets laughs at work.
The original version of the Harris cartoon came out in American Scientist years and years ago and I laughed so hard the first time I read it it wasn’t funny. He did a great series of cartoons for that journal and they were often the best part of any issue.
Interesting to note that Emery’s synopsis acknowledges the conservative, common sense approach (stop spending) will fail not because it wouldn’t work, but because we don’t have anyone in office willing to do it, while the leftist plan is a lunatic’s fantasy.
In any case, I’m buying gold these days.
But the price of gold is inflated, Swiftee!
It’s hard to beat the market in anything.
Buy cases of liquor and canned beans. It will never be worth less than it is now, and gold might be.
Gold is hyperinflated. Silver almost as bad.
Liquor, cigarettes, ammunition, canned goods, and salt.
I like the formula of Bullets, Bullion and Bourbon. I don’t see silver as an asset that appreciates, but as a means of exchange when a dollar bill will be worth less than a piece of lettuce, and lettuce’s shelf life makes it problematic as a method of exchange.
Obama is now a one-term president who will never run for public office again. He gets to choose whether he becomes a footnote, or a chapter in history. He may well abandon his supporters on the left to strike a deal with Republicans over the fiscal cliff and entitlements reform. This is a much more likely scenario than you think and has plenty of precedent. Remember, only Nixon could go to China.