We Are Officially Past the Danger of Recession

The Federal Reserve Chairman and others around the nation have decided that the danger of a recession has passed. They have thoroughly examined the leading economic indicators, factored in the price of oil, patted themselves on the back for their response to the mortgage crisis and given each other high-fives for averting a major economic downturn. I think it must illustrate their being out-of-touch with the reality of working class Americans.

When gasoline takes a larger-and-larger share of the family budget and the price of food, cosmetics, plastics, and everything else that is either transported or manufactured with petroleum based products (I think that's about everything) rises dramatically, people are worse off. Either the wrong indicators are being used to measure the economy or the facts are being ignored. People have less disposable income today than they did a year ago. They have much less than they did two years ago. They will spend less for clothes, they will take less expensive vacations (or forego them altogether), they will go to the movies less, eat out less, and on-and-on. The effect is lagged. It will be months before we truly feel the impact of higher gasoline and oil prices.

I think the stock market already recognizes that fact. It is only a matter of time before the lack of capital investment in industry begins to show. It will take years for our economy to recover.

The Dem's want to make it worse with added burdens on consumers through Global Warming legislation. They also think the way to resolve the problem is through taxes. Let me see, if we (consumers) already have less to spend on non-fuel items, what happens when you soak us with additional taxes? Duh, we have less??

A $3 Trillion Budget

This should give us all pause to think of the consequences of a Democrat controlled Congress and Executive. Tax-and-spend will become the norm.

"The spending plan squeaked through the House on a vote of 214 to 210, as 14 Democrats voted with a united GOP in opposition. "

These are excerpts from this article.

"Because Bush has vowed to veto appropriations bills that exceed his spending requests, Democrats are considering delaying passage of most of the bills until a new president takes office in January."

I must admit that we have seen excessive growth in the Federal Budget over the last eight years. Republican control did not seem to slow it down. The one redeeming factor was the tax cuts that were implemented. We kept more of our money through that period of growth in federal expenditures. The Democratic candidate for the Presidency has stated that he is in favor of rescinding those tax cuts. Just think how much faster the federal bureaucracy will grow if that happens!