The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is..

running out of money.

Government printing presses will be turning red-hot as they crank out all those dollars to stimulate the American economy and, by extension, the world economy.

They say there is no movement in the credit markets. Now, I don't know too much about economics, and I suspect that even folks with a lot of initials after the names don't really know all that much either, but when you have no movement, a high colonic is the answer. For the economy that comes in the form of dollars.

Personally, I think one of those high colonics should be delivered on an hourly basis to all those smart boys and girls, investment bankers all, who brought down our economy with their boundless greed and unsurpassed inventiveness. I mean, you really have to be inventive to create and buy into a financial instrument you don't even understand. The banker and securities dudes and dudettes didn't even know what they were buying and selling.

I mean, how smart can an MBA be? George W. Bush got one from Yale, fer crisakes! And did Bush EVER do anything good? This is a guy who failed upward! From pilot to oil to baseball to governor to president. I challenge you to name one endeavor where he succeeded!

I would never hire anyone with an MBA. Personally, I believe that a smart liberal arts guy can run rings around an MBA simply because the liberal arts guy, like a history major, would be smart enough to ask, "what does this mean?" and wait for a decent explanation.

I can't stand all these media types who are so eager to report that we are in a second "Great Depression." One was enough, please! Besides, we have so many more market safeguards and government mechanisms in place that didn't exist in the 1930s. The FDIC, that agency that insures your bank deposits to $250,000, didn't exist back then so there was a run on the banks as people tried to get out their cash before the bank collapsed. Now if a bank collapses, basically the depositor's money is safe and they just deal with a different corporate entity. And unemployment is absolutely nowhere near the tidal wave it was in the 1930s. So to all the hyenas clamoring about another Great Depression, two words: "SHUT UP!"

So it is left for the Obama administration to print a ton of money to goose the economy so that it starts running, but then to throttle back in time to prevent runaway inflation, which is what you have when a lot of dollars start chasing fewer goods (which is what will happen with all the manufacturers laying off people and cutting production). This is what happened in the 1970s when the Johnson administration decided not to raise taxes to pay for the Vietnam war and decided instead to run the money presses. These measures eventually inflated the economy to the point where credit card interest rates were running at 25%. Remember when Nixon ineffectively implemented price and wage controls? Remember Gerald Ford's "WIN" button, "WIN" standing for "Whip Inflation Now"? Not a pretty sight!

The Obama team has to have a deft sense of the economy to know when to floor it and when to ease off the gas and not to overshoot the target. Obama has to steer a course cleanly between the Scylla of recession/depression and the Charybdis of inflation.

Oh, George W. Bush actually did do one thing right. He finally left Washington.