Volatility? We've Been Here BeforeA reader sent some quotes from another time. They seem familiar. 1928: "You have been enjoying Republican prosperity." — Charles Curtis, vice-presidential candidate. 2006: "I'm hard put to find a time when things were as good as they are now for the party from our perspective." — Dick "Dead Eye" Cheney speaking to Republican talk-show operative Rush Limbaugh. Oct. 24, 1929: "Stocks Off 5 Billion In Severest Break Of Wall Street History." — New York Herald Tribune. Oct. 25, 1929: "The fundamental business of the country … is on a sound and prosperous basis." — Herbert "The Regulator" Hoover. Aug. 8, 2007: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong." — George "Herbert Hoover" Bush. Aug. 9, 2007: "Dow Plunges 387 On Subprime Concerns." — Associated Press. September 1929: "There is no cause for worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue." — Andrew Mellon, Wall Street titan turned Secretary of the Treasury. Aug. 1, 2007: "I see the underlying economy as being very healthy." — Henry Paulson, Wall Street titan turned Secretary of the Treasury. And now for the requisite declaration of absurdity. "Inflation is low," the president said Thursday. The president does not shop, nor does he pay bills. They beam him in for public appearances, surrounded by armed guards, rocket launchers and missile-bearing aircraft hovering just beyond the treetops. Our chicken-in-every-pot chief says he does not read or watch the news. We can believe it. He opined that he saw a soft landing in the economy. This year, several million Americans will have a hard landing. They face foreclosure. The president, who holds an MBA from Harvard, said Thursday he is not an economist. The yes-men he calls economists have been saying for months the mortgage debacle would be confined to subprime loans. That's not true. And we wonder that market traders would lose confidence? Traders know what causes market debacles: the counterfeiting monetary policies of the government and Federal Reserve.
Democrats in Congress, not to be outdone, also have no clue. They want to raise oil and gasoline taxes and hammer Americans at the pump. They want to punish workers in the tobacco industry. They want to jack up prices for Americans with tariffs on Chinese goods. They want to soak the public with global warming scams. They want to hijack health care and create still another federal blight upon the economy. They want to bail out "homeowners" who got mortgages with zero money down, who gave zero documentation of their incomes and who paid zero mortgage payments while living high for the nine months it took to evict them. (This creative "financing" was encouraged by the oily government servant and darling of Wall Street, former Fed head Alan "Bubbles" Greenspan.) They want to bail out the banks that created the credit out of thin air to loan these saps the money. Perhaps the Democrats will pass a law forcing Americans to leave their doors open so citizens "in need" can live high by raiding their neighbors' refrigerators. Here comes Hillary Clinton's shared prosperity. It's not enough that they fleece the average American worker for $40 of every $100 he makes. They want more. While Americans lose jobs, homes and dreams, these self-appointed managers of the economy want to repeat the errors that led to the Raw Deal of FDR. They would confiscate more from us to flush down the toilet of federal budget schemes. They would further fatten the entrails of greed that poison the soul of a nation when a cabal of ruling elites commands unlimited control of other people's money — our money. Yes, it seems familiar — too, too familiar. Phil Lucas is executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla. Contact him at plucas@pcnh.com. To find out more about Lucas and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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