O-bombing the Economic Recovery

Obama is all set to approve the new stimulus package, a paltry 50 billion dollars slosh of construction funds. Don’t get me wrong, its better than nothing; anything that chips away at our embarrassing 9.6% unemployment rate is welcome. But the plan is like bailing out the canoe with a teaspoon.

Obama’s own economists calculated that the government would have to spend slightly less than a trillion dollars more to move the unemployment rate below 8% by the end of 2010. So he’s doing his best, you say?

Well here’s the really bad news. Behind the spending is a 200billion tax credit, aimed at businesses. The measure would allow so many businesses to write up off to 100% of capital investments through 2011. In layman’s terms, this means businesses can go out and buy tons of equipment, realty, or hardware, AND THE GOVERNMNET WILL PAY FOR IT. Funny that you don’t hear the right whining about “handouts” this time; after all, everyone’s bread needs some butter.

That’s right, you give away free stuff to people, you are a bongo-playing hippie Marxist, but do the same thing for business, the very same ones that ran the worlds economy into the ground through irresponsible investments, and you are a down home good ol’ American capitalist. Frankly I’d like to see the money go to real investments like infrastructure or eduction.

Does no one remember the dot com bubble, the housing bubble, and the credit default swap mess? B-rock may be young, be he’s no baby. There is a good reason the US government doesn’t play venture capitalist.

As V.I. Lennon put it, “You look for the person who will benefit.” In this case its the company owners and shareholders who are going to win, and the government who will take the hit if their gamble fails. The term moral hazzad doesn’t really encompass the absurdity of this plan. It should really be called a moral landmine. Our economy is already a war zone; we don’t need any more O bombs.